


Grim Optimism

by Critique_Masochist



Category: Darkest Dungeon (Video Game)
Genre: Abuse, Action/Adventure, Angst, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Blood and Gore, Constructive Criticism Welcome, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Eventually some hurt comfort, Fancy descriptions, Gore, Humor, M/M, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Paranoia, Past Abuse, Period-Typical Homophobia, Psychological Horror, Psychological Torture, Some Humor, not that much homophobia, this is so fun to write
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-03-09
Updated: 2019-04-30
Packaged: 2019-11-14 07:44:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 18
Words: 41,678
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18048455
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Critique_Masochist/pseuds/Critique_Masochist
Summary: “But you’re a joke!” the skull giggled. “Jokes are supposed to be funny!”“It’s not funny! This is not funny!” my shoulders shook as I started crying, giggles mixing into my sobs as usual. I hated the sounds I made when I cried, they made me feel worse, made me feel like even I was making fun of myself for being so weak. “Everyone is dead! I heard them die-I heard them being mangled while I ran away like a coward.” I wondered if the skull could even understand my words through the sobs and giggles. Did skulls even have ears? I held up the laughing skull to look for earholes. When my wet eyes finally allowed me to inspect the skull more properly, I noticed a bright light behind the smiling face. A group of shadowy figures holding a torch were looking down at me. I was dazed by the light, like a monster. I remembered skulls can’t speak.





	1. The Madness Begins

The dim torchlight barely illuminated our feet as we stomped through the rivers of pigs blood, wandering through the twisted corridors of the warrens. All the red looked so out of place in the otherwise peaceful mossy moist green halls, I thought as we crossed the rotting corpses of pig people holding drums made out of human skin. I could definitely imagine this place looking so much more beautiful if somebody just bothered to clean it up a lot. If some bloodsucking monstrosity just decided to come over here for a stroll one day, maybe this would turn into a much more welcoming place. All you’d have to do is lick all the red off the floor and the walls and eat all the bodies of course.

A few flowers could add a touch of colour to the beautiful olive walls and just a couple of statues would make things appear royal, like a well-kept garden in some forgotten part of the world.

Small piglets ran past us, making the Antiquarian shriek.

“Cursed creatures…” she mumbled.

“Wonder what they ran away from.” I giggled, starting to play a song that I titled ‘we should really head back already’, a tune that was specifically designed to annoy a certain knight into giving into my demands.

“We will head back soon enough.”

I groaned and mimicked his clunky egocentric walking style, as best as I could, to maybe get a giggle out of the clearly stressed out Antiquarian. To my surprise she rolled her eyes and started to walk faster, leaving me alone in my quest to limp behind my team. I sighed. What a brat! I didn’t really like her. Sure, her mere presence was enough to make our entire party feel richer, however when it came to fighting, she was absolutely useless.

Maybe some would say that’s not a bad trade but if I was asked to choose between being rich and being alive, I would probably eventually choose the latter, especially after receiving a few critical blows from some random diseased pigs-folk.

Yet riches was what we had come here for and I had no other option but to shut up and deal with whatever decision our ‘great and wonderful leader’ came to. That narcissistic Crusader had been making all the important choices for us since we first arrived at hamlet and for whatever reason we all just went along with it. Which… did make sense since until now we had been nothing but newbies who would absolutely jump at the opportunity to hide behind a big bossy knight dude with armour thick enough to shield his enormous ego from all the constructive criticism I threw his way.

Criticism like: “Maybe we should buy more torches so that we can see what we fight?” or “Since we are all nothing more than flesh bags maybe bandages would be handy!” or “Our very lovable Leper seems to be pretty shaken up since our last fight, maybe if we took a break, I could cheer him up, eh?” or “My leg hurts like hell, I can’t go on another expedition.” OR “I WONDER WHAT THEY RAN FROM!!”.

 

I wobbled backwards and dropped my lute which made a quite comical sound as it hit the bloody floor, it almost sounded like even my instrument was shocked at the realization that this day would end in our death. I gasped at the full glory of the giant Swinetaur, a cursed beast wearing a tasteless amount of sturdy armour. The beast noticed us and for just a second it was blinded by our dim but lifesaving torch! It was just enough time for me to regain my composure, grab my lute and start playing my ‘we should really head back already’ tune at an erratic and panicked speed.

“We won’t fall back!” a fool bigger than myself yelled.

“Let’s send it back to hell where it belongs!” yelled the group that I was no longer part of.

My mind was a blank. I simply stood there, dumbfounded by the pure idiocy before me.

“That thing has ARMOUR you morons!” I yelled, slowly limping away from the fight.

“You can still make it bleed, yes?” said the crusader and was promptly silenced by a spear being rammed right through his armour, hitting almost every vital organ on its way out. The sound it made as it pierced his metal skin was almost as angelic as the slurping sound it made when being pulled back out. A few sounds that vaguely resembled laughter came out of my lungs as the corpse of our ‘glorious leader’ hit the ground, his blood fusing with the blood of all the other pigs that had been slain there.

 

My vision trembled as I watched our beautiful Vestal try to heal what was already lost. He delicate hands gripping her weapon, he wonderful voice begging the heavens for help, her dreamy eyes leaking with holy water. I almost felt bad when I saw her break down and sob into the mangled flesh of her friend.

A pity… I booked it. Cries of grief, fear and pain echoed around me as I tried to make out what incomprehensible insults the Leper was roaring at either me or the monster. Everyone had clearly gone mad. Or, perhaps, we were mad from the start, mindlessly following someone who we barely knew into a fight that we could never win.

I stopped running when the pain in my leg got paralyzing.

“Just make it bleed, Jester!” I mocked, rolling on the ground and gasping for air. “Everything will be alright, I am here with you!! My light shall guide you, please don’t be blinded by my *cough* enchanting glory!” I coughed hard, cursing every god I knew for getting me into this horrible situation. As my pathetic panting slowed down and my vision cleared, I heard the chilling sound of footsteps.

I rolled in the blood, away from any light and did my very best to hide behind corpses without throwing up. My body felt weak and useless and the stench of the dead was making me very lightheaded. I gazed into the blurry darkness, expecting to be noticed but hoping not to be.

Maybe, if I squinted, I could actually see the person who wuld end my life. I watched deliriously as three enormous pigs came towards me, completely missed me and started rushing towards the sounds of breaking bones instead. I held back my laughter. How did they miss a Jester? The one guy that dances around in the brightest of colours, the biggest attention whore of any group?

I decided they must be as stupid as my teammates. I let out a sigh of relief as my surroundings fell silent. No footsteps, no blood splashing sounds, no cries, no bones being broken, no so-sobbing… no insults, no pigs, no nothing. I shook my head in an attempt to clear the dark fog that was clouding my vision. I inched away from the corpses and looked down at my drenched, blood soaked, heavy clothes. I was completely covered in vomit and decomposed flesh, maybe I wasn’t sticking out as much as I thought? I chugged down a flask of antivenom for really no reason other than to have the temporary placebo effect sober me up a bit. I threw the bottle into the pile of flesh next to me and got up.

 

I should really feel bad for abandoning my party. I should feel ashamed and horrible. However, for some strange reason… I felt nothing. I never really liked my group, despite the fact that they had never hurt me… directly.

They had never treated me like an entertainment monkey like my old master did, so what reason could I possibly have to be almost delighted at their death? I scratched my wet head. Maybe it was never them but me. Maybe they were never as spoiled as I had made them out to be. Maybe I had been the one looking down at them and not the other way around. I laughed at the irony of that; an insignificant jester like me looking down on religious heroes! Had I really done that? Was I even capable of that? It didn’t matter anymore. I tried to walk but quickly discovered that my swollen leg wouldn’t allow it.

I mumbled more curses at the gods and sat down to inspect the wound. The crusader had insisted that my leg was fine and had dragged me into this hellhole despite the pain it was causing me.

“At least he didn’t give me the injury…” I said, trying to convince myself to feel some sort of grief for his loss. “He probably wanted me to come here, OW HELL, because… because we didn’t have the money to, ARGH, treat this or something.”

My attempts at convincing myself failed about as hard as my attempts at ignoring the pain. I tried to get up anyway and maybe hop away but I quickly slipped on patches of decomposing flesh, hidden under the thick coat of blood. I tried to use a disembodied arm or a leg as a walking stick but it didn’t work and I ended up crawling on all four towards the direction of the exit, praying that I wouldn’t be spotted along the way.

My nausea was heightened by all the things that I ended up touching during my long crawl: teeth, flesh, _mushy_ flesh, bones, skulls and so. many. worms. My mind had to be playing tricks on me, I felt the bones move under my fingers, I saw skulls turn and look at me. They were looking at me, giggling, making noise and drawing attention to my location. I tried to shush them but to no success, their giggles became even louder. I took one of the larger skulls and begged it to stop. It was wobbling and laughing in my hands, _dying_ of laughter. I wanted to crush it, stab my knife into those rotting eyeballs for laughing at me when I was at my lowest.

“Shut up!” I hissed. “You don’t even KNOW what I did to the last guy who laughed when I was crying!”

“But you’re a joke!” the skull giggled. “Jokes are supposed to be funny!”

“It’s not funny! This is not funny!” my shoulders shook as I started crying, giggles mixing into my sobs as usual. I hated the sounds I made when I cried, they made me feel worse, made me feel like even I was making fun of myself for being so weak. “Everyone is dead! I heard them die-I heard them being mangled while I ran away like a coward.”

 

I wondered if the skull could even understand my words through the sobs and giggles. Did skulls even have ears? I held up the laughing skull to look for earholes. When my wet eyes finally allowed me to inspect the skull more properly, I noticed a bright light behind the smiling face. A group of shadowy figures holding a torch were looking down at me. I was dazed by the light, like a monster. I remembered skulls can’t speak.

“Are you alright?” A manly and raspy yet weirdly female voice asked. She was wearing the skin of another animal. I laughed!

“I wear animal skin too!” I pointed at the pieces of pig flesh hanging off my clothes.

“He’s not alright, is he?” The Hellion raised an eyebrow and looked at the other figures for suggestions.

One of the figures shrugged and took a few steppes towards me, making me jerk away. I flailed around in the blood and crawled to a dark corner to hide from the spooky light people. They were scary, I thought, but I didn’t know why. I still felt like crying but a strange smile was plastered on my face. Part of my mind was telling me that this was, in fact, fun! That we were playing hide and seek just like in the good old days.

 

I tried to focus on my current situations but weird memories kept distracting me, drawing my attention to strange and insignificant details of my past. For example, what colours that blond kid that always played with me wore on a day today basis. They were always wearing something different. Rich and lucky and colourful, I loved colourful clothing, it always reminded me of playing with that boy. Funny clothing.

That strange belt my master always wore was funny too actually. It had a golden fish as a buckle and it looked like the fish was eating the belt. Or maybe it was a shark. It looked always so happy to eat the belt. I should have been happy to get the belt too but it always made me cry. And then I laughed weird, why did I always laugh so weirdly?

I jumped as something touched my leg. The uncanny beak of a plague doctor was right in my face. She was hunched over, inspecting my injury.

“Old and infected injury… I’m guessing you can’t walk.” I searched her voice for emotion but I found none. It made me laugh.

“I’m completely useless.” I giggled playfully.

She looked over at the hellion. “Ariana, this one is very broken. Mind and soul.”

“We only started this journey, we can’t go back just yet.” Arianna mumbled.

“My party was against turning back too.” I said, pointing deeper into the Warrens. “They’re dead now.”

“Your entire… party?” the plague doctor whispered.

“Yes.” I whispered back. “And guess what.” I started gossiping, silent enough for no one else to hear. “They were making me carry all their stuff, so I have lots of loot.”

“They made you carry things? In this condition?” she pointed at my leg.

“Yes, yes. I got a lot of use out of that leg, however it is looking pretty bad nowadays. Doesn’t work right, either. I should go back to town and buy myself a nicer new one.” I took out some antique coins from my pockets and waved them around. “This should be enough.”

“Arianna, he has coins.” No emotion, hilarious.

The hellion came over to inspect my coins. “Very beautiful coins… very rare… probably.” She helped the plague doctor back up. “We have slain a couple of monsters and now we have collected treasure. I see no reason to stay here any longer.”

Part of my brain informed me that I should be happy about this so I cheered. A rough arm wrapped itself around my chest and started dragging me outside. I bit the arm and told the arm that I wasn’t afraid of it, the arm didn’t even listen. Probably because arms don’t have ears…


	2. New 'Friends'

I kept talking until Arianna showed a bottle into my hands. I knew bottles, I knew what they did to your brain. Fun things, funny adventures and good times. I really desperately needed a good time. A few gulps and I felt a weird sensation, my sense of space and time was quickly returning to my brain. It felt like, somehow, a bit of alcohol had sobered me up.

“They all died and I ran away.” I whispered.

“Yes, yes, you told us about 50 times already. Shut up and drink up.”

I did.

“He should be able to walk again after a good night’s rest.” The bird-girl said. Her beak was caressing my legs again. I was very curious about how long she was planning on hanging around my lower half. So curious.

“Good.” The beast-woman looked me in the eyes. Oh. My mask was gone. “You owe us. Not because of the rescue but because you made us listen to your entire life story. Brother, I will not treat you like others before me. I know honor, I wouldn’t dare disrespect you. I offer that you assist us is our next expedition as payment. We will treat you like one of us.”

 

Where was my mask? I looked around. It wasn’t on the floor, it wasn’t on the table. I looked around the bar that we were apparently in, yet I failed to spot it anywhere. I did, however, spot a lot of people looking at me. Looking at the face that was seen on too many wanted posters back in my hometown, I felt shivers running through my body.

 I hated my face about as much as I hated my name, they were like cursed canvases in desperate need to be covered with a thick layer of colourful paint. Without my painted expression I felt naked, exposed, HUMILIATED! I cowered my face with my hands and hid under the table.

“Oh, for crying out loud.” Ariana groaned. “Will you stop acting like a madman already? You are safe.”

I heard a few shuffling sounds and felt a rough poke by an arm that I was very familiar with. The bounty hunter, perhaps, understood how it felt like to be unmasked. His intentions were potentially sympathetic; sadly, I didn’t trust him one bit.

“Mask.” He said to Arianna. His voice sounded distant and cold, a roar coming from the bottom of a deep well.

“Uh, right.”

I felt the edges of something hard being poked into my fingers. I grabbed it quickly and relaxed a bit as I realized that it was, indeed, my painted face. I put it on swiftly, nodding quietly at the kneeling Bounty Hunter as a silent sign of appreciation. I took a deep breath and came out of hiding.

“I innocently suggest that we discuss this outside, preferably in the darkest alleyway we can find.” I put my hands together sweetly.

To my surprise, the Bounty hunter headed outside immediately, followed by a shrugging Plague Doctor.

“Hey, wait a minute!” The hellion yelled, confused.

“Sensitive matters, sister.” I patted her shoulder.

“What? I just wanted to recruit you??”

 

I left her alone with her confusion and exited the bar. The misty air of Hamlet filled my lungs, I had almost missed this horrible place. A whole town full of criminals and lunatics, all gathered here for the sole purpose of getting rich and getting out. Nobody liked being here, everyone wanted to leave but they had all decided to stay. Two figures were waiting for me near an alleyway, I waved at them cheerfully!

Heavy footsteps behind me exited the bar, clearly my sincere words or the leaving of her two best friends had finally convinced Ms. Arianna to join us in the alleyway-fun-time. What a strange soul she was… clearly an outsider, wandering around with her face in the open. It must be nice to be so pretty and clean. Not a worry in the world. I could make fun of that…

We met up between two narrow walls, confident that nobody could hear us. I dropped the facade.

“Whose bright ideas was it to unmask me?” I hissed. I loved my act but sadly some situations required seriousness.

The bounty hunter raised his hand, silent.

I rolled my eyes. “Wonderful. I’m guessing you know who I am?”

He nodded.

“Oh, sweet!” I cheered for him. “Congratulations, you found me! Wow! I can’t believe after all this time I’ve finally been found! Master’s relatives will be so happy to finally add cannibalism to their list of crimes tonight! What a great day! So, now what? What’s your plan?” I glared at the wolves around me. “Are you just going to pretend to recruit me and hand me over? Is that the game we are playing? Because you guys are terrible at this game. Like, god awful. Even I figured it out and I’m an idiot!”

 

Arianna’s exposed face revealed that she had been completely clueless to this situation. She just froze like a dog who heard a distant gunshot from deep within the forest, startled and dumbfounded with the realization that there might be grave danger ahead. It was almost cute, I loved dogs!

“If we had decided to hand you over, we would have already done so.” The beaked lady said.

“Maybe you’re sadists.” I shrugged. “Maybe you want to- “and I started acting out my ideas. “watch me fall to my knees in horror as I realize your great deception! Maybe you want to see the betrayal and despair on my face as I yell at the gods for rescuing me from hell just to crush my hope and kill me anyway.”

I secretly enjoyed Arianna’s looks of confusion as she tried to decide whether I was being serious or sarcastic by my tone and ridiculous gestured.

“Maybe… you just want to see me SUFFER.”

“Are you still insane?” the plague doctor sounded genuinely curious.

I was disappointed in her reaction, though crowd. “No clue. How can I tell?”

“Do you usually act this way?”

 

“Uhhh...” I thought about it before realizing that I must have accidentally derailed this conversation since this had absolutely nothing to do with my point. “I guess I’m just trying to distract myself from the fact that you guys are very untrustworthy and dangerous.”

“Are we though.”

“I don’t trust you.” I admitted.

“Not my problem.” The kind doctor stated coldly. “We saved your life and gave you a beer. I personally think that your life is worth more than just a few coins.”

“Ah… how nice?”

“I think you owe us more than that. You should work for me to repay your debt.”

“Aww, how nice! You want me to be your slave!”

“That’s an unpleasant way of putting it…” the doctor huffed. “But yes. Work for us until…”

“Yeeeesss??”

“Until… until….” She looked over at Arianna for ideas.

“I… I just thought we would bring him along for the next mission because he talked so much. I didn’t even know about the bounty. How much are they paying?”

“500 gold pieces.” The monster from the well replied.

“What? That’s almost nothing!” Arianna said.

“Huh... It used to be a lot more than that.” I mumbled under my breath.

“Prices change.” The creature howled and chills went down my spine. It had excellent hearing.

 

“I suppose 500 still is worth a lot outside of Hamlet…” the doctor said.

“But it’s not worth it. Brother, we shall not hand you over. Whatever you did, you are safe with us.” Arianna said in a tone that was laughably sincere.

“Oh, I feel so safe after hearing you guys discuss the pros and cons of getting me killed!”

Arianna looked at her teammates, ashamed but too proud to admit it. “Jester, join my party and we will share a forth of our profit with you. I believe this would be beneficial to all of us. We have been a team of three since the start and we would love another teammate.”

I considered my options. It was hard to get into a team nowadays. Usually stray members would team up with other strays and form some of the most dysfunctional teams in existence which would head off to adventure never to be seen again.

Strays were considered untrustworthy and dangerous since there was a chance that they got their team killed or in general ran away instead of fighting with the rest like cowards who completely lacked loyalty… which was actually exactly the type of person I was.

It was very unlikely somebody else would accept me into their team and it was also very unlikely I could even trust complete strangers enough to join them. Can’t join others, can’t go back home either… I could never return to my hometown after what had happened and after being robbed by ‘my heroes’ I had no money to live anywhere else. Not a penny. I had literally no other option but to blindly trust these absolute psychopaths who just talked about selling me away to the police and keeping me as a slave.

 

My mask hid my terrified expression as I shook Arianna’s hand.

The deal was done. I would join them in (at least) one sightseeing tour to hell. Arianna was kind enough to pay for my room that night. The local church offered enough rooms in their basement to house at least half of the adventurers that came to Hamlet, the other half usually slept in tents outside if they were very poor or if they were very rich in the brothel. My room was somewhat far from the others and I sighed as I realized that the door had a lock on it.

I locked my door immediately and looked around the room. It was a very small room which to some may feel claustrophobic but to me it felt safe and cosy, I felt deliriously tired. A lot had happened today… too much.

My legs started moving towards it before I even noticed there was a tiny bed in the room, no doubt my feet would hang out of this bed but I was used to much worse, and a small drawer for storing my items. Strange since everyone would leave and get a new room the next day, who would store things here? I tensed and looked through the drawers to see if anything dangerous was in them, they were completely empty but the tense feeling didn’t leave. I still felt unsafe.

I decided that even though it was locked, some drunk could easily punch my door hard enough to break through the lock. Lunatics might use their heads to smash through as well, and unstable adventurers… they might just axe the lock away, coming in here to use their devices to make me suffer a slow and insidious death. The air felt heavy and I realized I was sweating. I had been feeling completely burned out just a moment ago but now I felt like I could easily stay up all night just in case.

 

I noticed my hands were shaking… what the hell? Nothing had ever happened to me in these room, they were very safe. I had never even heard of anyone breaking in here, even if somebody did, other adventurers would definitely attack them. My body completely disregarded this knowledge and decided to push the small drawer in front of the door.

Still not safe.

This was something new. I had always been distrustful of others because of the deception I regularly faced in my childhood, I had grown up having nobody I could really trust or depend on; however, I had never been in a locked room glaring at the door from under my blanket. This was new and I hated it. My eyelids hurt terribly and my leg was still healing, I simply had to get some sleep. And yet… yet I couldn’t.

I was about to step out of the bed to shove it in front of door as well when suddenly the person under my bed began talking.

“Unmistakably crazy.” she said.

 

I shrieked and jumped out of the bed. Even the furthest corner of the room was at most two meters from the bed, my vision started to blur as I realized that I was trapped in this tiny room. The door didn’t break either, the other adventurers surely thought that I was either crazy or have had a nightmare. I stared at her as the beaked lady crawled out from under my bed.

“Don’t be like that, I just wanted to make sure you wouldn’t do something stupid like run away after we went through all the trouble of saving you. However, looks like you…” she looked at the door. “you really weren’t planning on running away.”

I said nothing, trying instead to slow down my breathing to something more socially acceptable.

“Sorry for scaring you.” She added, attempting to come closer but stopping. “Very intriguing. You really irrationally fear me. I am unarmed, you know.”

Indeed, she was wearing nothing but that terrifying mask and a simple, out of place looking night gown. “Why the mask??” I managed to whisper. It looked so strange and, well, it was the biggest reason why I was still paralyzed with fear.

“Oh. I don’t know, I guess I thought you would freak out if you saw me without it.” I think she could see my confusion even through my mask. “You know, because then you wouldn’t recognize me.” She explained.

 

“Oh.” My breathing had turned into something more rhythmical and my blurry vision was finally more focused. I felt strange. It felt like my body was trying to decide whether it should continue releasing insane amounts of adrenaline, because there was a scary person in the room, or just stop and let me faint. When the bird lady sat next to me it decided on the former and my shaking continued.

“Very strange.” She said as she grabbed my hand to inspect it. “So twitchy! I’ve never been able to analyse insanity before, I apologize if I’m coming off as too forward.”

“You are coming off as a sadistic control freak, don’t touch my hand.” I hissed, she wasn’t intimidated.

“Coming face to face with death probably triggered this reaction. Probably somewhat normal. Hm. I wonder if regular sedatives will fix or worsen this condition…”

“I just want to sleep.” I admitted, too exhausted to even come up with a lie.

“I’ll see what I can do.”

To my surprise she exited the room. What? Was she really that stupid? I got up and watched as she went to her own room and grabbed a few things. I looked at her dreamily as she came back and closer the door right when she was about to enter. I locked it too.

 

“Hey!” she banged on the door.

A giggle escaped me.

“Oh, very funny. I was just trying to help!” the doctor hissed.

“You can’t help.”

“Oh, the philosophical question of whether or not a damaged mind can ever be healed! I don’t believe that thinking about questions forever is how you solve them, I am a woman of action! I know you’re the guy who talked to a skull but surely you don’t want to act this way, you admitted it yourself! Are you really just going to sleep on this when I could attempt to fix you this very instance?”

“I’m not your lab rat.” I said, before pushing the drawer back in front of the door.

“Ugh!” her monotone had completely disappeared. She was clearly passionate about her creepy experimenting. I ignored her completely and went back to bed. All emotion had left my body. I felt almost dead, for a second my breathing stopped but then… then I finally went to sleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope you enjoyed my story so far! :D This was certainly an interesting chapter to write, I’m not sure if the ‘slowly revealing the characters real personalities’ thing is working or not… why not help me out with this by leeeeaving feedback?  
> Maybe you didn’t notice that my name is Critique Masochist, it describes me very well! :D  
> I would love to hear any and all thoughts you have on my work in the form of a comment <3  
> If you don’t have an account, an easy way to comment is to just use gyblerish as a name and email account. For example:  
> Name: Commenter  
> Email: adfg@asdf.com


	3. Fighting and Friendly Banter

                                                                                             ---Authors note---

The combat in this fic is not completely accurate to the combat in the game. 

\-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

Again, I glared at the door. No doubt my worst fears were behind that door, in hiding, waiting for me to come out. Waiting to jump in my face, to ambush me, to tear my flesh from my bones. I knew what I feared, I feared being hurt.

I never REALLY understood the idea of worrying about others, mostly because other people were usually less breakable than me. Behind the door there had to be a monster with razor teeth and sharp claws, an eldritch horror that you may survive but never forgot. Something that will scar you for life in every literary way possible!

I kicked the door open. The door swung open and hit a grave robber in the face. I crawled over to her dazed body, almost confused as to why she was there. Clearly, she was not my worst nightmare. More like a 7/10 to be fair. If her nose wasn't bleeding, I would have rated her even higher! I apologetically put a fake rose in her hand and sneaked away from the crime scene. She would be ok. Probably.

After expecting but not finding a random encounter outside of my hotel room I found my other teammates waiting outside. I went over to the bounty hunter.

"She..." I pointed a fragile finger at the madwoman of the group. "...was under my bed last night."

"I asked her to."

"I trusted youuuu..."

"You didn't. Feeling is mutual."

"Aww." My charismatic nature faltered when I realized that not even this ‘shy and good-natured guy’ was safe to be around. I still kind of liked him! Despite his growling voice and his clearly untrusting attitude towards me he was a nice guy who returned my mask and kept me safe from the police, except he was also the one to remove my mask and suggest the police thing so...

I inched away from the Bounty hunter.

 

"I have found us a mission in the Weald. It pays well and it should be relatively easy." Arianna started.

"Should be." I pointed out.

"Weald." The plague doctor said fondly.

Poison. Well at least we had her to combat the poison. A lady who fights poison with poisons of her own, a scientist who stops at nothing to achieve... whatever it is she wants to achieve! If she wasn't so scary, I would have rated her a 10/10. Still, I had very low standards, proven by the fact that I had never even seen her face.

"We have been gifted these three chemical flasks that I have been told we shouldn't smell or even open because they are just so acidic..." The plague doctor was lighting up at her words, her hands grasping her chest and her fingers curling in delight. "...that they could melt our faces off."

"Whose face do we use them on?" I asked.

"We are to empty them on three infected corpses deep within the forest. Their smell should give them away. It will be easy." Arianna explained.

"I like this mission." Curly fingers said.

“What’s our approach?" I asked, trying my best to ignore the pretty lady’s adorable scariness.

"I believe you are good at cutting." Arianna said.

"I bet you also believe in approximately ten different gods." I joked.

"Jester. I want you to be in third row." she smiled.

 

Survivable...

"I think I can do that... do you want them to bleed?"

"Yes!" She smiled a little too widely.

"But preferably only the big ones."

"Right!" I smiled back, either out of fear or out of a mutual understanding that fresh blood is great.

Arianna then informed me that they would usually try to be rather stealthy during missions, stopping every now and then to listen and smell the air (like lost dogs) and make sure not to run into an ambush.

This was vital because our only healer was Olivia.

I pointed at the plague doctor. "Her?"

"Yes. Her name is Olivia."

"What about-"

"He is Dave." She pointed at Dave.

“I am Arianna.”

 

"Speaking of names!" I started. "Mine is a strange one, as you probably know." I looked over at the bounty hunter as I spoke. "I really don’t like my name, I would appreciate it if you either called me Jester or just William."

"Will?"

"No. William." I folded my arms defensively.

"But that’s a relatively long name...?" Arianna shrugged, trying her best not to offend. "It'll be hard to say during battle."

"Jester then."

"But that’s so cold! We are fighting together, we are brothers in war, we are family!”

“Siblings in war.” I corrected.

“Will.” She insisted.

“No.”

“Dave, what’s his actual name?”

“NO!”

The bounty hunter shuffled through some paper notes he had on himself and he grabbed me by my throat when I attempted to stop him.

“Williengtoninango.” The hunters growl left my body weak. I felt a cancerous sphere of regret form in my chest as I anticipated the childish bullying that was about to begin.

“You know what? Will is fine.” I pleaded.

 

Silence.

 

“How do you even pronounce that name?” Arianna wasn’t laughing which, honestly, made me very happy. Fools were given names that would get them nowhere in life, names that would stop them from becoming anything else in life other than entertainers. Names were nothing but a crutch, another gift from the outside world, aimed to make us suffer. How funny, he can’t pursue his dreams of becoming a ballerina because his name won’t fit on any application form! HAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

Hilarious.

Names were a curse, they were most jesters second disability.

I noticed hungry gazes around me, searching my body and face for information. I had been silent for too long.

“I’m not going to teach you how to pronounce it.” I huffed.

“Fair enough.” Seemed as if Arianna had picked up on the fact that I HATED my name. Despite being an outsider and therefor unaware of the traditional suffering that fools would undergo, she seemed to be pretty great at reading my body language. I wasn’t sure how I felt about this. On one hand she might understand me better after picking up on the emotional context of my words but on the other hand… _if I ever decided to try and run away from them, she would know._

If I could just stay a few hundred feet from all of them, I would probably feel a lot safer.

 

I just shut my mouth as Dave decided that we didn’t need any torches for this mission. None at all. I liked torches. They made me feel safe since they would often blind enemies, allowing me to jam a sickle into their throat before they could even react. No torches… I had no idea how this would help us but the other two seemed completely fine with it. They had clearly done this before. I said nothing.

An uneasy feeling engulfed me. My breathing was uneven already, I knew this would happen soon but not this soon. These people were clearly trying to play it risky, they were trying to get killed. I was in a suicidal team and now it was too late to go back, much too late, they wouldn’t let me.  _I knew we would die but I couldn’t run, no, they would catch me and drag me along and then they would never lose sight of me again._

“Did you like the new chemicals you got yesterday? Are they good chemicals?” I flinched when Arianna suddenly broke the silence.

“I suppose they aren’t bad, the alcohol I bought was pretty watered down which isn’t good but other than that they were fine. Here, look, I mixed this green stuff yesterday. Do you see how there is a slight mist on top? That means that the acids are strong enough to neutralize when they interact with the water in the plants. It means they are reacting  _just right_. I love it, it’s perfect. This will heal us right up when we need it.”

“Good work.” The she-wolf had the face of a proud mother. “The salesmen aren’t giving you any trouble, right?”

“Actually, no. It’s honestly very surprising. I don’t even have to change my voice for them to give me what I want. It’s almost like they have seen stranger things than a woman who does science.”

They laughed.

“I understand how you feel. Despite being so far away from my home, I feel that somehow this place could be my home too.”

I decided that it wouldn’t hurt to join in. “Lots of things to kill, am I right?”

“You are very right!” she smiled widely. “Back home there were rules on what to kill and how to kill it. We weren’t supposed to make the animals suffer or kill too many of them. Here, there are no rules. I really enjoy how they all bleed.” He bright smile faded quickly. “Except those cursed skeletons.”

“Oh, those do bleed. I made one bleed once.” I boasted.

Arianna’s eyes glittered with admiration! “How??”

“Well, you have to kill them first.”

More laughter.

I had missed laughter.

 

The mushrooms around us were becoming bigger the closer we got to our destination. Giant mushrooms were fusing together, twisting themselves into new shapes and spreading their toxic spores all around the forest. The trees were covered in them as well, to the point where some were unrecognizable. It was getting hard to differentiate tree and mushroom as we finally approached an opening, surrounded by tons and tons of mushrooms. There was a small direction sign next to the pulsating mushrooms, ‘Weald’.

Rumours had it that this place used to be a graveyard, that the trees used to be ‘normal’. Nowadays the Weald wasn’t used as a graveyard anymore, yet fresh dead bodies were still a common sight here. The dead would become food for the mushrooms and the wild dogs that roamed these woods. Earthy colours surrounded us as we ventured into the woods, the trees let their mossy vines hang loosely which moved slowly and calmly in the soft breeze.

Most trees were still alive in these parts and their leaves rustled, making lovely tunes and dancing alongside the peacefully pulsating mushrooms. It was almost beautiful, the way the plant life seemed so alright with the horrors lurking in this place, how easy going this place seemed at first sight; it was nothing like the Warrens. Orange colours mixed with dull browns and greens and the deeper we ventured the less sunlight reaches us through the leafy ceiling.

The dim sunlight was starting to paint our surrounding is a purplish red like royal wine when suddenly Arianna stopped in her tracks. She shushed us and pointed to our right. The sound of gargling water was faint but audible from behind the trees, Arianna had brilliant hearing. It sounded like somebody was drowning.

“Ectoplasm. It’s behind those trees.”

“Ambush it. Try to kill it fast.” Dave growled.

Arianna nodded and rushed towards the trees, grabbing some short vines and swinging right into the enemy! She slashed into one of the two ectoplasms, tall blob creatures made of moving acidic mucus and human remains. It had just consumed a new corpse and the dissolving graverobber was visible for all to see through the monster’s green flesh.

I couldn’t help but watch as the acid slowly melted her flesh away, eating at her clothes and skin and hair and turning them into more acidic mucus and I couldn’t help but smile as I cut away some of the ectoplasm (3 Damage), making the monster bleed out it’s disgusting goo. Its wounds were too great and it quickly bleed out all of its guts and whatever was left of its victim, what a sight.

Dave did the same, attacking the second ectoplasm with a mighty blow of his axe, which looked like the most appropriate weapon for the wealds anyway, dealing 8 Damage. It wasn’t enough and the plague doctor couldn’t attack it before it used Cytokinesis, dividing itself and spawning a perfect replica of itself which just happened to have full health. Dave grunted in frustration.

“I can stun it.” Olivia shouted.

“Stun it or we’ll be here all day.” Arianna hissed before swinging her glaive, dealing 6 Damage and killing the injured ectoplasm.

“Well now it’s not worth the stun anymore.” Olivia mumbled as she cut through the last enemies’ flesh. I finished the job she had started, killing the monster.

 

I stepped away from the acidic pudding the creatures left behind and let out a sigh of relief. I had been so anxious about fighting with these people but we didn’t even get hurt in this battle, I let myself feel a bit more confident about our combined power. Maybe, just maybe, we wouldn’t all die horribly today.

Olivia neutralized the acidic goo and grabbed what gold was left on the graverobbers body.

“600 gold.” She stated.

“Look, your new pet already paid for itself!” I gloated.

Arianna snickered.

“Stay close.” She said, as she took the lead and guided us back to the road and deeper through the forest. I smelled the air, trying to figure out if we were getting closer to the strange stench or not but I couldn’t tell. The wind and all the spores in the air made it impossible for me to tell, though I had some faith that the animalistic Arianna was better at this than me.

“I’m thinking…” Olivia started. “…that maybe introducing a Jester into a stealthy team wasn’t the best of ideas?” she pointed at the bells attached to my collar, there were also some on my shoes and on my headwear, making my steps more musical than anyone else’s.

“You have a point; most enemies don’t have the best taste in music.”

“Want some help cutting them off?” Olivia took out her knife.

“We just shared a bed once and already you are trying to change me!” I grinned.

“You shared a bed??” Arianna was in disbelief.

Olivia, embarrassed, dug her knife into my clothes, cutting off some of the hard-to-reach bells. “I was just hiding under it.”

“You were hiding under his bed?? Were you planning on watching him sleep or what?”

“Technically, yes.”

“You have strange taste in men.” The rough lady concluded.

“I take offense to that!” I was jumping behind them, trying to cut off the bells on my shoes.

I had just managed to remove the last bell with a satisfying knife stroke when I was suddenly pushed to the ground.

I instinctively put my sickle to Arianna’s throat. “Don’t Do That!”

“Hide!” she whispered, ignoring my threat and pulling the other party members to the ground and into the seas of mushrooms. I held my breath and hid among the throbbing plants as well, just in time to escape the Giant. The diseased superhuman looked around with its squinted eyes but saw nothing so it kept walking, its moss covered and bandaged feet dampening the sound of its steps.

 

I felt my heart pounding at the sight, I remembered a certain crusader getting completely obliterated by the giant’s tree branch one time. Despite all of his protective armour, he had almost died! Almost… died… I felt nauseas. We watched in silence as the giant got attacked by some wild dogs and how he killed them in a single blow, clearly the passage of time had not made our enemies any weaker. I felt a sharp pain in my lungs and I tried my best to silence my coughs.

The giant turned around and my blood froze.

It looked straight at us. Then left.

I coughed violently as my lungs tried their best to get out all of the spores I had just inhaled.

“Aww, I know it’s hard to get used to hiding in strange places, brother.” Arianna offered me her hand, I politely declined by continuing my coughing fit.

My body handled the situation very poorly but after I regained the ability to breath-in again, Olivia cured the poison in my system with some of her vaporous potions. I was shaken, not by the poison but by the memories flooding into my brain.

“Do we have to fight that thing?” I panted.

“Not necessarily.” Dave was just so reassuring!

 

I got back up and hid behind Dave’s relatively large figure. I was taller than him, taller than most people and I was clearly visible behind him but I decided that I felt safer within the group for once. Probably because of the giant. Definitely because of the giant. I would trust my teammates for now, mostly because I felt like it was the better option.

We went back into proper formation and kept walking, avoiding traps and fighting dogs until nightfall. It was getting pretty late and my feet felt sore. My healing leg was starting to cramp and I was generally feeling rather miserable, not hurt but just mentally exhausted.

A dog lunged at me, catching me off guard. It dug its sharp teeth into my arm and I yelped I surprise, falling backwards because of the impact, 6 Damage. I panicked, blood suddenly rushing to my head and momentarily making me forget literally everything! I desperately tried to free my arm or throw the dog off of me but to no avail before finally remembering that I did, in fact, have a sickle with me. Arianna slashed it’s throat open before I could, dealing 11 Damage.

 

I nodded at her, thankful but shaken. I was trembling again. Wiping the blood off my mask and getting a chance to inspect my wounds would normally be enough to calm my nerves a bit, however tonight my paranoid mind decided that this wound would be enough to convince  _everyone_   _that I was nothing but dead weight. Soon enough, they would decide to kill me, cut off my arms and legs maybe… maybe they would grill them on a bonfire as I watched in horror and bled out._

I flinched when Arianna touched my shoulder. “You look tired.”

“I’m fine.” I lied.

“Let me stop the bleeding.” Olivia said as she took out a new bottle of medicine.  _Maybe this one was poisoned._

“Um…” I was about to stop her but decided against it. It was perfectly fine, I knew she wouldn’t hurt me  _probably_ , my mind was only playing tricks on me. I had clearly seen too much blood today.

“I think you should probably invest in some armour.” The leather-bound war woman remarked, looking me up and down, judging my sense of fashion.

I did find my current attire to be fashionable but if I had the option, I would choose to wear beast hide as well, especially during battle! However, the way things were, I couldn’t afford leather or any type of armour and my old team had quickly decided against buying me some since it would ‘slow me down’. I had no choice so frilly dress it was!

She stared.

Why was my inner monologing so distracting? “I’d buy myself something nice but you robbed me blind, remember?”

Her eyes scanned my face for emotion before searching the rest of my body for some sort of sign or something. Her expression changed as she found whatever she was looking for.

“Are you cold?”

A shiver went down my spine, she was outstanding at reading me! Why did I even bother with the mask when she could see right through me so easily?

“I’m fine.”

She frowned. Maybe two lies in a row were too many? I got back up and kicked the dead dog once just to be sure that it was really actually dead. It was getting rather chilly; the soft breeze was fine during the day but at night it made me regret being inside blood-soaked and ripped clothing. I would get hurt a lot, I was good at hiding pain among other things. This cold was no exception. For now, I would hide these things, it was dangerous to show weakness among  _potentially cannibalistic_  people, after all.

 

Arianna’s frown only grew as I kept pretending to not be cold while we crossed a graveyard full of dead trees and dancing mushrooms and, guess what, a lot more wind.

“Let’s camp here for the night.” She declared and I decided that I could never truly fool her and that she was clearly who would eventually, undoubtably use my own Sickle to rip open my chest and tear out my-

Again, I flinched under her touch. She was trying to be nice to me, I knew that… but it also scarred me. Why was she being nice to me? Why me? People laughed at my jokes but none of them actually cared about me as a person, nobody cares about the jester he can be replaced and he usually is replaced weekly because let’s be real they die very easily and our master isn’t really the nicest person, now is he?

“William?”

“Y-Yes?”

 “Help me set up a bonfire, will you?”

“Sure…”

I relished in the warmth once the fire got started. Somehow either it or some food at eased my mind enough to concentrate on what was currently happening, rather than just jumping from the past to the present. I decided that I was clearly, very insane.

“Hey, um, thank you.” I said to Arianna.

CLEARLY INSANE INDEED!  _WHAT THE HELL, WHY DID I TELL HER THAT KNOW SHE KNOWS I’M A WEAK PIECE OF SHIT!_

She smiled. It looked so genuine and heart-warming that I  _almost_ believed it.

I had to make up for my flaws somehow so I decided to play whatever song was requested by my audience that night. Most requests came from the before mentioned Arianna, though I didn’t know most of the songs she asked for. Yet, for some reason, I knew the song called ‘Red Water’.

“Ah, we finally found one that you know! Please do play it!” she beamed.

“Weird.” The bounty hunter in the corner mumbled.

“Weird indeed, how do you know that song?” Olivia asked, monotone but curious.

“Knowing songs is part of my job!” I reminded them.

 

To be fair, the reason I knew the song was so strange that I doubted anyone would ever believe it. I recalled the day as I began playing my lute.

Sweet, repetitive sounds were released into the air as my fingers started dancing over the cords. The soft vibrations soothed my soul, it was as if the notes were kissing my fingers for setting them free with every move I made. I started singing the strange song.

 

_“Quivering on the battlefield, several feet below_

_Underneath a thousand men lay someone that you know._

_Your dearest friend, the best you had, from some time long ago._

_Left you shaken, wondering if you’ll ever ever meet again._

_Again._

_Drowning in the red water again_

_Again…”_

 

I remember my mother singing me this song, which is strange because I was told my mother died during my birth.

 

_“Sobbing crying, still alive, it’s someone that you know._

_Stuck underneath a thousand men, feeling quite hollow._

_Knowing that you’ll search for them, they ask you to let go._

_Left you shaken, wondering will they ever be the same again._

_Again._

_Drowning in the red water again_

_Again…”_

 

I didn’t remember how old I was, I didn’t remember why she sang it but I remember that it was my mother. The mother I was told I never had.

 

_“You searched for them, they can’t be found, you’ll have to go solo._

_It hurt your heart but you know that they will soon follow._

_Behind you is empty space, the darkness of your shadow,_

_Left you shaken, wondering will you ever be the same again._

_Again_

_Drowning in the red water again_

_Again.”_

 

Arianna applauded, making the others realize that the song was over. She seemed sad yet very pleased.

“You reminded me of good times with friends. Thank you very much, William.”

“Good times?” The plague doctor sounded concerned, probably not for the wold woman but rather her friends.

“Yes! We used to sing this all the time after fighting practice.” She explained. “When we were all still young women.”

I thought about the possibility of my mom(?) being a warrior woman. Well, that would most certainly mean that whoever she was, she wasn’t my real mom because I was as far from a warrior as you could get. Maybe if my mom inbred or something?

I returned my attention to Arianna.

“I would really like you to teach me some of the other songs you mentioned. Perhaps not today, but someday.”

She grinned. “If you are willing to learn, I am willing to teach!”

“Oh, believe me, I’m always willing to learn new songs. Making music is my biggest passion.” Maybe they could use that against me, maybe I was being crazy again.

We went to sleep after that, or we were supposed to go to sleep after that but… well… I couldn’t. I was used to sleeping outside, I did that a lot even as a child and recently I had grown used to sleeping in the warrens as well which was truly a skill to be proud of, however back in the warrens I had trust in my team. I felt safe enough to sleep because I knew we either wouldn’t get ambushed because someone was standing guard or I knew that if we did get ambushed a certain narcissist would be to jealous of my pain to let me endure it all on my own. Huh… He did protect me every now and then didn’t he. He kind of was like a strange and mean big brother I suppose. Reynold, why did I let you die? I noticed the bounty hunter sleeping next to me rise up. I was expecting him to at least attempt to kill me but instead he just walked a bit away from me and the others and started stargazing.

Huh.

How romantic, I couldn’t let him do that alone now could I? I approached him cautiously, making sure not to make too much noise but to make enough noise for him to realize my presence. He looked my way and nodded when I came close enough.

 

“Couldn’t sleep?”

He shook his head.

“Want me to sing you a lullaby?” I grinned.

He looked at me for a long time, trying to decipher if I was serious or not.

I blinked. “I can if you want me to.” 

“I’ll keep guard. Go to sleep.” He growled.

“I’m not sure if I can. Ever since… my last party… I don’t really want to.”

He tilted his head slightly. It was clearly meant to be a questioning gesture but it made be giggle because it looked so cute.

“It’s not that I don’t trust you people!” I corrected, still smiling. “It’s just that… I’m not sure. I just… I’m not over it yet, I suppose.”

Silence.

“Are you like that too? I mean, is there a reason as to why you can’t sleep?”

More silence.

“Oh, there totally is.” I snickered. “Tell me, tell me! I won’t tell anyone! It will be our bro secret.”

I was just goofing around because the evening air was intoxicating, I did not expect him to take off his helmet. In total seriousness, he looked at me and gestured to me to do the same. I reluctantly agreed, avoiding his gaze as I did so.

 

“I’ve seen your face before.” Maybe he was aiming to make me feel more comfortable but his monotone, growly, monster voice was everything but comforting. Still, it was nice to hear it clearly, without the echoes and obstructions of the helmet.

“I don’t like showing people my face.”

“Why not?”

“Because… um…” I smiled shyly. “I’m not that confident, I’m not that brave… but the masks hides that to a degree. I like that a lot.”

“I see.”

“What about you? You don’t take that thing off in Hamlet either.”

“That’s true. I guess I don’t want people to see that I’m just as expressionless without the mask as I am with it.” He looked up at the stars, his face devoid of emotion. I sensed sadness but it was indeed hard to tell.

“That’s what I like about you though!” I smiled warmly. “You’re the voice of reason! Somebody has to keep us grounded in this madness and you seem to be brilliant at that!” he almost smiled back. “Tell me, how do you do it?”

“Staying calm?”

“No, how do you stay quiet? I have no idea! It’s really incredible!”

My eyes widened as he snorted. Little pig noises came out of him as he laughed a short laugh. “Ah… Things are better when I don’t talk.”

“Why?”

“Every time I meet old friends or just get drunk and open my mouth, I speak about nothing but death. I’ve killed enough people to become well acquainted with the concept and I find it very interesting.”

“Is death interesting? I think killing is where it’s really at, to be honest.”

“I find it very interesting how people react when they are faced with death. Mourning and pleading and raging over someone else’s… or even their own death. It’s the reaction that gets me.”

“So… um… did you find my reaction…”

“Interesting? Yes. You kept telling us how you never really liked your teammates yet you were… clearly heartbroken. I had never seen a reaction so strange before.”

“Hm.” I looked away.

 

“Why were you grieving over their loss? Did you care?”

“Uh… I didn’t. It’s just… I knew them and… and they were annoying but they were all… just people. Just normal people who…  _they didn’t deserve any of that!_ ” tears were building up already so I put my mask back on. “I could have been like them. I could have been in their place, I could have run into that fight because I was blind enough to believe I could win it. They didn’t deserve my betrayal. I should have died with them. They didn’t deserve it. At all. I felt so sorry. I still feel so bad about it.”

“It’s not your fault.”

“Yes, but I should have stayed!”

“Perhaps.”

“…”

“Then again, you were injured.”

“…too late now.”

“You’re right. I’m sorry for bringing it up.”

“No, it’s fine.” I tried to smile. “I’m glad to get it off my chest.”

“It’s not… fine. I always do this. Every time I talk… people around me start crying.” He looked annoyed. “I’m terrible at talking.”

“Aww, don’t say that!”

“No, that’s why I wanted to have you on my team, regardless of all the red flags!”

“What?”

“And there were MANY red flags. I mean, seriously. You’re a coward that we found in a heap of meat, totally insane and injured with a lute and two badly made knives. Basically, a stray, which is red flag number one. After we decided to help you, you told us a dramatic story about how you killed your entire team, I know you were exaggerating but I could never be sure which is red flag number 2. Then I wanted to unmask you to make sure you weren’t a murderer or something and then you turned out to be a murderer which is-“

“Okay, okay, I get it! Stop roasting me and just get to the point.” I pouted.

“I needed you on our side because you can do that one thing that I never could, you can make people laugh.” He paused for a moment. “That’s what this team is missing, William. That’s what… what I’m missing. You can offer to them what I never could. You can even make  **me**  laugh.” He looked away, a soft smile on his lips. “That’s... impressive. You’re not  _amazing_ , you’re still a paranoid and untrustworthy individual but I think you could help us a lot. I think we really need you.”

“Huh… that’s kind of sweet actually. I guess that compliment was worth being called a stray insane murderous backstabbing coward.”

“Sorry.”

“No problem. I think… I think I might agree. I am a stray insane murderous backstabbing coward.”

“You KNOW that’s not what I meant.”

I laughed. “I know. Thank you.”

“Go get some sleep.” He put his helmet back on but before he did, I caught him smiling.

I remembered much later that I never did find out why he couldn’t sleep.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, Dave’s dialog was super cute huh? I’m pretty happy with it, that was kind of nice <3 I’m kind of not sure who I should ship at this point, lol.  
> Anyway, about that ‘a name is a jester’s second disability’ thing…  
> I’m not implying that disabled people are like jesters, it’s just that in this story, that is based on random miserable concepts I have casually glued together, it just so happens that orphaned disabled children were usually selected to become jesters because… well, because in jesters backstory, the people he entertained seemed to be people who would laugh at other people’s misery.  
> I don’t want to offend anyone, I just always thought that that is the kind of messed up stuff that was happening outside of Hamlet.  
> AAaaaaaanyway, if you feel like I deserve to be yelled at regardless of what I say then PLEASE DO! :D  
> I really love getting negative and positive comments <3


	4. A new Day awaits

I got some decent sleep with only very few night terrors plaguing me. I awoke to a relatively well-rested party. Arianna looked well however, Dave seemed tired. Did he stand watch the whole night? Weird sympathetic emotions bubbled up in my chest and I promised myself that I would stand watch next time. Next time? What?? What was I thinking? This was a on time thing, nothing more nothing less. These people weren’t trustworthy. Something about them just felt so off. Like… they were doing their very best to deceive me. I couldn’t put my finger on why I felt that way.

I decided to ignore it.

I wanted to trust. I wanted to.

“Morning.” Dave put his hands on his hips. “Sadly, this turned out to be a longer expedition than expected. There are still two infected corpses left, meaning we need to go deeper into the forest.” He paused and his hands decided that a confident position did not suit them, instead folding defensively below his chest. “Danger ahead. Stick together, don’t be startled.”

Easier said than done.

“You heard the boss!” Arianna stepped in. “Stronger enemies have more protection, we will need to make them bleed. William, don’t be intimidated by them. If we run, we run together.”

Run together? The idea was foreign to me but what a brilliant concept! Getting to escape from danger AND potentially having all my teammates survive? It was like not only magically having a delicious cake but also being given the ability to eat it! It was clearly too good to be true but it was a cute thought non the less.

“That sounds like something I could get behind.”

“Glad to hear it.” She smiled widely, trusting. I didn’t want to disappoint her but I knew that soon everything would get out of hand and we would all quickly descend into unpredictable madness, slaughtering friend and foe alike and turning every fight into a chaotic mess of blood and gore, blood being drawn from every limb, ultimately resulting in screams of agony that I could not bear to hear.

Could running really save us?

Dave patted my shoulder, waking me from my stupid thoughts. The others had already started walking so I decided to shake off the feeling of hopelessness, everything was fine for now. Perfectly fine. I was with friends. If something happened, we would run together. Nobody would die.

I joined the rest of them with a happy tune coming from my lute.

 

 

I stopped when we were abruptly ambushed by cultists, actually startling Arianna and getting us all out of row. We immediately regained our composure and drew our weapons as… our enemies kept running until they were too far away to attack us. What the heck? One of the cultists, a female, decided that she was far away enough from us, and whatever she was running from, and just stopped to stare at us ominously.

“Want me to poison her?” Olivia asked, getting ready to throw her potions.

“No.” Dave grunted.

Olivia looked over for a clarification but she was met with nothing but silence. With a hint of anger, she placed the green potions back on her belt. “Well, if she attacks us, I’m blaming you.”

“Do that.” Dave said.

We all just stares back at the female figure in the distance. She hadn’t attacked us but she was stressing us out regardless. I waved my lute around menacingly to intimidate her however she just… waved back? With her hand. I suffered 5 stress damage.

“I can smell what she was running from.” Arianna mumbled, making weird dog like motions and smelling the air around her. “I smell something boiling. Some sort of… ‘soup’ probably. It’s the witch. How many cultists just ran past us?”

“You think she cooked some?” I whispered, keeping my eye on the waving lady.

“Maybe. Doesn’t concern us… except… well, I think the infected corpse may be around here somewhere.”

Dave tilted his head in that cute way. “Near her?”

“I can’t tell.” Arianna admitted. “We should check it out though.”

Dave nodded and we started carefully following Arianna. I and Olivia quickly joined them. Sneaking around like this… it really made me realize how much I missed my bells, they would absolutely ruin this mission but they would hilariously ruin this mission. Everyone would die is a funny way! It would be fun. I missed fun. I decided I would invite everyone to poker after this was all done.

Maybe I would even invite our stalker!

I tapped Dave on the shoulder, directing his gaze towards the shadowy figure still following us. Still staring.

“She’s after me.” He said.

“What??” I whispered.

 “She won’t bother you. It’s me she’s after.” He paused for a moment. “You don’t need to worry about her.”

I tried my very best to identify any kind of emotion in the eldritch growls he spewed that I interpreted as words… but found nothing. Defeated, I decided on a different approach. “So, when did you two meet?” I elbowed his arm, leaving flirty undertones in my voice.

He thought about it, his hand reaching out and scratching where his nose would be under his mask. “I pulled her in… “he pulled out his grappling hook. “…with this. Ever since that she just… finds me.”

Curious. “You think she likes you?”

“I think she hates me.” He said with a giggle that sounded like drowning Thrall.

Maybe Dave had killed all of her lovable cultist friends? Very probably but I had also killed people before and I knew from experience that murder didn’t make you a bad person. Abandoning your friends did. I wondered if this lady had abandoned her friends or not.

 

 

The smell of delicious soup or, to be more literal, boiling meat was strengthening as we passed by a small graveyard, littered with dead trees and graves, fleshly buried or unburied, the earth around them clearly dug. We spotted a few corpses, still bloody and half buried with limp arms and legs sticking out of the ground, fingers twisted from all the pain they endured before death.

Did cultists and bandits bury their dead? A shiver went down my spine as I realized that we were clearly not the first group who tried to confront the Hag today.

I honestly didn’t know that much about the Hag but from what I had heard she was… human. Very human actually. So human, in fact, that at first adventurers didn’t attack her, assuming she was simply a weird old lady living a simple life in this incredibly toxic mushroom palace.

I also heard some of the more gourmet adventurers were talking about tasting her soup. If I have learned anything from hanging out with weird people, it’s that they will eat or drink ANYTHING if they **think** it’s rare.

It’s rare for that thing to be delicious though.

I remembered master eating gold… What a sight, watching something so precious being eaten. It did hurt me deeply but his disgust made it all worth it. Oh, his glorious groans and coughs and hiccups and sobs.

…

No. That… that didn’t happen.

What?

 

I jumped when Dave grabbed my shoulder, pulling me back to earth. He looked me in the eyes with what might have been a glare though, I decided it was as a worried look. It was dangerous to be an airhead, especially when you’re right next to the Hag’s house.

“I’m sorry.” I whispered.

“Focus.” It sounded like an order. I didn’t like that.

The house before us was rather normal. It was made of earthy coloured bricks and had a hay roof, very similar to houses near farms… probably. A simple old house, exactly the type of house I would imagine an old grumpy man living in. Someone who quite possibly hated humanity deeply, someone who had retreated into the forest to be away from all the noise. I heard drowning noises. The soup was almost ready.

We moved around on all four, trying to find out where in the world the Hag was so that we could go more effectively stay as far away from her as possible. Arianna smelled the air a few times and pointed to our left, towards the corner of the house. We crouched down even lower as Arianna leaned forwards to peak around the corner. She turned back towards us with a comically unhappy expression.

“It’s **her** and the corpse is **right next to her!!** ” she whisper-screamed. I immediately understood her frustration. She knew that we couldn’t and wouldn’t take on a Hag without a proper healer. We would have to return without completing our mission. Without receiving our reward… meaning I couldn’t invite everyone to poker.

After all the dog bites and the poison and fear I had to endure, that sounded almost worse than death. Almost.

Dave touched her shoulder; it was just a touch but it got her attention immediately. Without wasting any words, he had managed to calm her down and get her attention. I had no explanation for why I was so dazzled by this little detail.

“I have an idea.” He motioned for Olivia to come closer to him. I came closer too for… absolutely no reason. “Your aim is decent, isn’t it?”

“If by decent you mean, brilliant far distance headshots, then no.”

“Can you hit the corpse from here?”

Olivia sighed and crawled over to Arianna to take a peek at the corpse. “Cute idea but no.”

“Different angle?”

“Different angle.” She pointed her finger towards where we came from. “If we went to the other side of the house, maybe then.”

“But that’s the direction she is looking at.“ Arianna argued. “If you just sneaked closer from this angle you could-“

“I would have to get under her arm to reach that corpse, she is practically leaning on it.” The doctor hissed, insulted by such foolish remarks.

“I don’t want her to see you.” Arianna said.

The doctor sighed, regaining her composure. We all simultaneously decided that we had no idea what to do, turning towards Dave with hopeful eyes.

Dave rubbed the crevices of his helmet. “You won’t like this plan.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A shorter Chapter.  
> More coming soon :)  
> Thank you 'rorrim eht ni eno ehT (rorrimehtnienoehT)' for commenting! You have a very long name! I didn't realize until now! Anyway, thank you so much! XD


	5. When do Plans ever work out anyway?

 

I hated myself. I hated myself very deeply and fondly as Dave helped me up to the roof of the house. The hay between my fingers felt alien. I had never touched hay before. It was slippery and hard and uncomfortable and it creeped me out. Every muscle in my body was shaking already. I sat down on the roof and looked back to face Dave. He gave me a thumbs up. I covered my face with both hands. WHY DID I AGREE TO THIS?

_“You’re good at running, right?”_ Dave had asked, his horrible monster voice ever so deep but with just a hint of insecurity. He was unsure about this as well.

I wanted to trust him. I wanted to trust in general but especially him. It was always a good idea to trust your leader, regardless of whether they deserve it or not… and Dave actually deserved it. A lot. He wasn’t like any of the other men I had known before. He was more than just a dog keeping the sheep together by barking at them, he was understanding and quiet yet his presence was enough to make everyone isten. Possibly because of his terrifying voice but even more so because of his intellect. He made… sense.

He was… quite possibly… the opposite of my master.

I simply couldn’t not like this man.

So, I trusted him.

I trusted him and he sent me on this stupid dumb mission to climb on the FREAKING ROOF of the HAG’S HOUSE and pour the acid danger liquid all over her and the rotting corpse she was hugging or leaning or whatever. Surely, she would be pleased about all of this! I couldn’t imagine anyone getting upset about acid!!

I tried to calm my nerves by reminding myself of ‘the plan’. Pour disgusting drink, roll backwards and jump off the roof, join the team in RUNING AWAY.

The plan involved running away together which I really liked. Especially the _together_ part and the _away_ part.

 

 

Every muscle in my body quivered as I crawled to the other side of the roof, peaking down to see the hag for the first time. She had horns and hay looking hair and from my perspective she looked eerily normal. She was definitely leaning into something gross though and she was definitely really REALLY huge and definitely really scary.

The way she mumbled familiar sung lyrics while casually stirring her soup just instantly creeped me out. But that wasn’t fear, that was only surface level fright. Actual fear only engulfed me as I saw the dissolving corpse slowly move and twist in her soup as she stirred. Its head wobbling back and forth as its body is swilled around by the massive spoon. The head came off and started rolling around on the surface just as I had finally managed to get a hold of myself and uncorked the acid.

The sight simply startled me, an innocent mistake. A few drops spilled on me accidentally. I heard the fizz as it dissolved my flesh and hit the bone after which I felt the pain.

I freaked out, dropping the flask. It didn’t splash on me, thankfully… but it did fall. And it did land. Perfectly. On. Her. Head.

It was so comical. So funny that I completely froze. She shrieked and then she shrieked again after seeing both parts of her pot and the corpse dissolve. Her horror was very audible yet I didn’t move a muscle. I couldn’t. Everything in my body had decided to stop. ‘We are done for today’ my brain had decided and my muscles had left my body to go home early. My heart was clearly still there though, I knew that because it was actively trying to kill me.

The hag and I watched as the pot tipped over and the soup spilled all over the mossy floor of her yard. I had ruined everything. She looked at me.

Those eyes.

Furious.

She flung at me and I jumped, crawling away until I was in the middle of her roof. My chance for running away had passed a long long time ago. I rolled into a tiny ball as the Hag tried her very best to reach me with her spoon. She was shouting and hitting the side of the house and throwing spice in my general direction. It did burn my eyes and make me cough quite uncontrollably but it didn’t hurt. Soon she started throwing vegetables, very strange and unnatural looking vegetables and after that stones…

Strange. I had assumed I was done for. Could she not reach me?

I wiped the chilli out of my eyes and allowed myself to relax for a moment, the brief sensation of happiness washing over me. This wasn’t that bad! I mean, I couldn’t see and my entire body was shaking uncontrollably because I would die here BUT I wouldn’t immediately die. I could settle down for a bit, make peace with myself and then die.

Then I heard dogs barking.

 

 

-Dave’s pov-

 

There was still work to do. Work, that I had carefully planned out. This mission was supposed to be just another stepping stone, something simple to get us further down our path. Do an easy job, get payed, see how William feels about being a permanent party member.

Recruiting William had been a smart move or so I had thought. Not only was he hard to hit for enemies but he was relatively decent at making them bleed. He would add to our odds of survival without slowing us down.

I thought hard about which part of my plan had been faulty to result in such a display of idiocy.

Me and the two ladies had taken off as soon as we heard the Witch scream but to our surprise Will hadn’t followed. So now we were about 50 meters away, hiding under dead leaves, watching the Hag was jump up and down around her house, throwing things up on the roof that she would probably never get back. William had been completely frozen in fear before, now he just seemed puzzled. Clearly, I had failed to explain things to him properly.

_USE WORDS DAVE,_ I thought to myself. _Words are made for explaining things, use them!_

I should have told him that the roof was way safer than the ground. Then, he wouldn’t have felt trapped or just… whatever the hell he is probably feeling right now.

This nonsense was my fault and my responsibility to fix.

“Her pot has been destroyed.” I pointed out.

Arianna frowned but there was determination in her eyes. She didn’t want this fight… but she cared about William. She cared even for our newest team member. Good.

The sound of barking echoes through the forest.

“Go!” I started running back towards the house.

 

 

-William’s pov-

 

After a while, the madwoman’s screeching and howling turned into cackling Something was tossed up onto the roof. I realized through tears that I was in a way worse situation then I had originally thought. I panicked, jumping on my feet and attempting to regain my sight by wiping my eyes with my equally spicy hands. The blurry thing before me had to be a dog. It landed on its back, whimpered, got up and noticed me.

It was love at first sight, the second it saw me it just couldn’t help but jump into my loving embrace and try to nibble at my throat. I nibbled first, slicing it’s head clean off.

I tossed it’s body off of me, hoping I wouldn’t contract whatever horrible deaseas it had. It’s blood had already soaked my clothes, filling my brain with very unwanted memories. I had been lucky to even hit this thing despite my worsening eyesight. Teas were forming again and I had no choice but to put away my mask to more effectively wipe my face. My eyelids were feeling a lot more swollen than they had previously.

My face exposed, I felt a lot weaker than I had before.

I whimpered when I heard another dog land on the roof.

When the total number of disease ridden animals reached 2, dodging became highly implausible. Clearly, one of them had noticed this and quickly decided to permanently attach itself to my arm, shaking its head and body in an attempt to throw me off balance and do as much damage to my arm as possible. The second dog got me just when I had almost freed myself from the first one. I squirmed and tried to get away but under the roof was where the filthy Hag was waiting.

Grinning.

She knew. She knew I wouldn’t last long. She was savouring my defeat.

I somehow dodged another lunge, surprised as the dog jumped off the roof and broke its neck. I put this newly realized knowledge to good use, plucking the leech dog from my arm and sending it back to where it came from. I heard a satisfying cracking sound

I realized that this tactic wouldn’t work as well as I had hoped after something that sounded much slower and heavier was thrown into my tiny roof-arena.

I panted heavily as the fungal humanoid crawled its way towards me. My arm was already bleeding quite heavily, taking 6 points of my life away every turn.

I gasped for air and tried to focus. There was so much to focus on! My breathing was all fucked up, everything hurt, my mind was simply in shambles still screaming about how wet with blood I was and the bleeding and… and the fact that there was no way I would survive this. My heart was ponding uncontrollably and soft noises escaped my mouth. Noises of pain and panic, illegible sounds.

I wasn’t used to fighting alone at all. I wasn’t used to feeling so trapped and outnumbered and cold, so cold. I squeezed my arm in an attempt to stop the bleeding. If only stopping a bleeding was that simple, if it was then I probably wouldn’t have heard so many stories of heroes bleeding out. Dying on the spot, not due to the enemy’s strength or their lack of protection but due to something that their armour couldn’t save them from. And I had no armour.

And I had no strength. I had nothing left. I attempted, half-heartedly, to get away from the Artillery but my knees gave in. My lungs squirmed as I inhaled the fungal poisons that had suddenly invaded my air, making me choke and cry.

Breathing hurt. It hurt a lot. I wished I could just stop breathing right now.

Existing was pain. It hurt, every part of it hurt. Everything. So cold. I vaguely felt my body collapsing into itself, my already blurred out vision quickly darkening. I realized that I couldn’t think of any last words. Nobody would have heard me anyway… Alone, trapped, pathetically wasting away. A coward’s death.

It suited me.


	6. Bedside Manners

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry about the weird pov changes and also the sudden 'main ship change' thing. 
> 
> In my original 'vision' Dave was supposed to die via the giant and that would basically force the other team members to trust each other and stop being whiney children basically. Ok, so I wrote that and I made Will fall in love with Olivia... and it was super messed up! She was soooo manipulative! Her character genuinely only cares about science...
> 
> BASICALLY: I messed up.
> 
> I hope you readers still enjoy this fic regardless.  
> If you don't enjoy it please do speak to me in the comments!  
> (Ok, I will try to shut up about the comments now, it's just like my kink you know.)

I felt something touch my forehead and instinctively moved away from it. A hand grabbed my wrist and pulled me back while another pressed me down.  
I had been pressed down before. Pressed and pushed down into the floor to be more specific, my master had swept the floor with my limp body on more than one occasion.  
However, this time it was different.  
This time I was being pressed, not pushed, and it was a hand, not a boot. Not to mention that i was pressed into a bed and not the floor...  


Simply put: this was gentler.  
  
This was my gentle master.   
My tired mind relaxed. Dave had arrived to rescue me. I had survived. The mere fact that I was no longer on the roof-arena just made me melt. For reasons beyond me, my team had returned for me. They could have abandoned me but they didn’t. they were too good for me.

I was warm again, well warmer than before. My fingers were cosy under a thin blanket and my head rested comfortably on a pillow. No amount of deliriousness could numb me to the horrendous stench though. It was the worst ‘unwashed old person’ smell I had EVER experienced. The pillow reeked of it.

I tried to sit up but was, again, pressed down.

I tried to open my eyes but my eyelids were still puffy and squishy. My lungs still hurt. My arm hurt terribly. As my senses returned to me, I realized more and more that it would take a while for me to feel better.

I also couldn’t help but notice that my mask was missing.

I weakly covered my face with my hands which brought a deep sigh out Dave.  
I had assumed it was annoyance... but it sounded like relief.  
  
“I’m sorry.” His voice sounded so loud to my ears. Such a loud scary voice, we had to be indoors.

Well, yes, beds aren’t usually outside, I tried to sit up again but was pressed down with a bit more force.

“Stop that.” He growled.

“What happened?” My lungs protested against speaking immediately and I regretted making a sound.

“A lot… My plan failed, I got you into a very dire situation and then I got you back out of it. You got hurt during that second part. I’m sorry.”

I couldn’t just say nothing. He had returned FOR ME!! Not because he needed me, hell I was more useless than a pile of garbage in my current state, he had returned because… uh… because… well… well, he hadn’t returned because of ME, surely. He had returned because it was the right thing to do. I was still grateful. Not anyone would go so far to help out a bad person.

“Thank you.” I winced, swallowing to ease the pain.

The sound of metal moving made me chuckle softly. I just knew, he had tilted his head and was making that cute goofy expression again.

“I got you hurt… you almost died.” I almost didn’t recognize his voice. It got so squeaky. He paused and then he continued with a more natural monstrous tone. “You’re delirious. Don’t worry, I’ll get Olivia to patch you up enough so that you can properly yell at me.”

 

I heard metal shuffling and the sound of a door being opened and closed. Inside… a house. A house.. in the weald? It smelled like the weald in here. A house in the weald… the hag’s house. The thought sent chills down my spine. If her choice of food was anything even close to her home decorating taste then I would rather not open my eyes ever.

The door was opened again and despite myself I opened my eyes to look. Blurry shapes gathered around me. Blurry shapes gathering around my hurt body, how nostalgic.

I felt the edges of something hard being poked into my fingers. I reached out to take it, the familiar shape was unmistakable. I slipped on my mask and let out a sigh of relief. I knew that things would be fine. These people wouldn’t hurt me. I was surprised by how safe I felt yet there were so many reasons to feel safe, I had my mask and was surrounded by people who had been impossibly kind to me so far. Impossibly kind. Impossible.

A strange smile spread across my hidden face. I had really grown to like these creepy illogical people.


	7. Horrible Bedside Manners

The blurry figures came closer and one of them kneeled next to me.

“Dave.” Olivia placed her delicate hands on the bed. “Why did you put his mask back on?”

Dave shifted around uncomfortably. It was adorable.

“It’s going to make things harder. His eyes are swollen, you know.” Olivia explained. Getting no response, she sighed and took off my mask.

 

I wish I could say that not wearing my mask made seeing any easier or that it made absolutely anything any better but I couldn’t just lie to myself like that. I wasn’t the prettiest by a long shot and despite the fact that everyone, including myself, had already made fun of my appearance in one way or another- I had never truly laughed at the way I looked. I was painful to look at and all the jokes about my body never boosted my self esteem for some reason…

It was fine though!

My team already knew what I looked like! I was glad that at least my weirdness wouldn’t bother them too much, my now swollen weirdness.

I still really wanted my mask back.

 

Olivia pushed up my eyelids to inspect my eyeballs after which she made me breath some of her potion vapor. The vapor didn’t disturb my lungs, thankfully, and seemed to ease the pain a bit. I was grateful. Maybe I would actually be able to talk without hurting myself now. I still felt naked but I was really warming up to the idea of being examined by a ‘professional’. I hadn’t really seen a doctor about… a lot of things and I realized that Olivia was changing the way I felt about doctors in general.

All the trust I had built up was the folded into a neat ball and thrown out of the window when Olivia decided to start taking off my shirt. Arianna stepped in and was promptly scolded.

“I’m a medical professional!” Olivia hissed.

“But you already saw him naked before…!” Arianna whined like a mother trying to protect her son’s chastity.

 “Science-“ the doctor started. “is about revealing truths. I want to reveal whether or not his body looks healthier now.” Arianna had no argument for that. “I also want to further examine his toes, if that would be alright by you.” Olivia silently added.

“Now wait a minute!” the manly woman barked.

“Oh, come now, don’t be so old fashioned!” Olivia reasoned, helping me strip. Her voice had emotion in it. I sighed, it seemed like her voice only ever showed emotion when she was doing something weird to me. “Doctors aren’t leech loving butchers anymore, we’re more delicate now. I only want to satisfy my own morbid curiosity here. I wouldn’t dare hurt him.”

 

She motioned vaguely in the direction of the door and started examining my bare chest. No awkward interaction would be complete without some physical contact which Olivia of course provided! She wasn’t just any doctor, no she was the ‘doctors edition deluxe package’!!

Not only would you be frightened by the fact that this woman carries poison and plague grenades around all the time, and not only would you have all the fun of worrying about your safety as this knife wielding experiment lover sneaked around your bed at night but you also would have the luxury of exposing yourself to her world famous ‘wiggly fingers’ every time you got sick!!

She was just sticking her finger in every nook and cranny she found on my upper body. If I didn’t know any better, I would have said she was in love with me… but I knew by now that that wasn’t true. It couldn’t be true. Her finger traces one of my scars and I shuddered.

“Please don’t do that.” I whimpered.

“Does it hurt?” she asked.

“No? It’s just… uh…” it was putting ideas in my head.

 

I tried to ignore her and glanced over towards the door. My eyes slowly adjusting to the light that came from the doorway. I twitched when I noticed my two blurry companions hadn’t left. Arianna had turned her back but Dave was looking right at me.

I gulped. Ok… Oh boy. This was fine, I was used to being looked at like that. What was this interested viewer feeling? Was it pity? Disgust? Confusion? I couldn’t tell what the hell he was thinking because of that stupid mask he wore.

I gave up. He was staring at my body, might as well joke about it.

“Don’t be so gay, Dave.” I made a very girly motion towards him to complete the joke. Olivia giggled.

“I wasn’t looking.” Dave said, innocently gazing at 5 different spots in the ceiling.

It actually made me laugh! I wasn’t expecting that.

It was incredibly rare for other people to even try and make me laugh but I had no doubt in my mind that Dave was being so darn cute on purpose.

 

How in the world was he so calm about this? How was he so ok with… me?? I understood why Olivia wasn’t losing her mind of it, as a doctor she could fully appreciate the parody of family relationships that was my existence. However, I had difficulties believing that a bounty hunter had ever come across somebody as impossible as me; yet here was, acting like it’s just a casual Sunday afternoon.

 Usually, people would just stare. Not this guy. He was special.

The confused grin I was unashamedly wearing turned into a more displeased expression as Olivia turned her attention towards my lower half and started removing my pants.

“Please… get your beak out of there.” I pleaded.

“Olivia, whatever you’re doing, stop.” Arianna was mad but still wasn’t looking. I appreciated that.

“Arianna, you don’t get it!” Olivia huffed. “He is super interesting!”

“I refuse to let you molest someone!”

“B-But!” the doctor protested, struggling to find an argument good enough for the she-wolf. “But, it’s fine because I’m a woman!” she concluded, weakly.

Clearly, that had upset Arianna so much that she turned around and clearly the sight of me had surprised her so much that she quickly turned her back again. “Oh Goodness!” she squeaked.

“See, that’s what I was talking about. He is amazing! I want to see all of him.” Olivia explained.

“At least buy me dinner first.” I groaned. I never knew how to feel about this kind of attention. On one hand it wasn’t a bad reaction, she wasn’t calling me a freak or a sinful abomination or anything… she was just ‘admiring’ the weirder aspects of my being. It was fine. She didn’t have to draw other people’s attention to it, though.

I didn’t appreciate it.

 

I held up my pants using both hands while glaring at the doctor, daring her to make a move.

Her mask’s empty black eyes examined me without emotion. Neither of us were moving, it was a battle of who would give in first and it wasn’t going to be me. I was already embarrassed enough and with Arianna having my back I was confident that the curious plague doctor would have no choice but to retreat with her tail between her legs. She had no better argument than her curiosity and nobody was accepting that as a good reason to strip me naked. She had nothing that could possibly make me-

Oh.

Well, I hadn’t even considered the idea that Olivia would use seduction to get what she wanted but after she put her hand on my fully clothed crotch, I realized that I should have seen this coming.

My surprise faded.

“Pervert.” I hissed, angry.

“Look. You’re a miracle.” She answered. I think in her mind that was supposed sound reasonable and flattering but I wasn’t flattered.

 She wasn’t impressed by me; she didn’t care about ME. All she cared about was how hilariously improbable it was that I managed to actually grow into an adult!

She didn’t care how I felt! She didn’t care if I felt uncomfortable! She never even tried to make me laugh! At this point, I would rather be **gay** than let her touch me down there!!

 

I knew that I had underestimated her but she had also underestimated me. Not wearing a mask had ONE teeny tiny advantage; you could bite people.

 

A sudden shriek followed by disappointed howling was heard all over the weald. Rumours spread that even some people in the warrens had heard the noise and that a party in the ruins had experienced something similar. All those people were lucky to have heard the sweet sounds of Olivia being punished for her platonic objectifying nonsense.

Sadly, not a single one of those people had heard the brilliant sound of Dave’s laughter.  It sounded very much like a 300 meters tall, heavy, old door slowly opening and closing. It was over so quickly and yet it was simultaneously the creepiest and most hilarious sound I had ever heard.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Is this Fluff?  
> I'm not good at Fluff. XD


	8. Rays of Blinding Sunshine

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I think this chapter is better then the last one.  
> Hope you guys think so as well :)  
> Thank you Rorrim for your continuous help!

 

“You have to laugh more often!” I beamed.

Arianna had walked Olivia outside to have ‘the talk’ with her. I wasn’t really sure what that meant but I was very happy to be alone with Dave once again. The bounty hunter left his place next to the doorframe to sit on my bed instead, possibly to get a better view of my unmasked face. My expression was just filled with endless admiration! He couldn’t handle it and looked away.

 “You’re probably the only person on earth who wants that.” His words were followed by a soft deep-growly-horrible chuckle that I instantly fell in love with.

I sincerely placed my hand on his when he turned his head to look at me. I was being completely genuine; he was amazing!

“I didn’t even know you could make those sounds!” I was all over the place, completely flustered over seemingly nothing at all; yet it felt so important! Telling Dave how I felt was so crucial to me at that moment. I simply had to get it off my chest how much I really liked him! Him and his arsenal of brilliant sounds.

“You still haven’t yelled at me…” he noticed, looking away.

Oh right. I had almost died.

“I had already forgotten.” I admitted. Dave lightly backed away from me. “Oh, don’t be like that.” I muttered. “I’m a Jester. A wanted Jester. A wanted Jester with combat skills, take a hint, I ‘almost died’ a lot in my 20 years of living.”

“Ah…” he paused. “I’m… I’m like that too but it’s just strange that… you would… not yell at me.” He concluded.

Dave was acting uncharacteristically shy and nervous, stringing barely comprehensible sentences together. I decided that my previous enthusiasm must have been somewhat off putting or creepy. That hadn’t been my intention but hey, I wouldn’t get punished for this mistake.

“I would never yell at you-“ I regretted my word choice immediately when I saw Dave act even more nervous. He had almost completely turned away from me and was looking towards the doorframe. He was trying to escape this conversation.

Well, it had been fun while it lasted.

I laughed softly, lightening the strange tension. “I’m sorry I made you uncomfortable. Have you seen my mask anywhere?”

Dave turned back towards me, saying nothing. I frowned.

“I don’t mean to offend but… what?” I said.

 

Dave, to my relief, took off his helmet so that I could actually interpret his stares. Even though he had claimed to have a very unmoving face, I had proved that to be wrong last time. I was confident that once I saw his face, I would be able to identify why exactly he was acting the way that he was.

The last rays of sunlight entered the room through the still open doorway. I noticed that Olivia’s treatment had almost fully healed my eyes at this point. I could fully appreciate the beautiful display of colours happening in the sky outside. I returned my attention to the dark silhouette of the man before me. My eyes adjusted.

The sunset outside was red and gorgeous, both of those qualities could also be found in the stunning man before me. He was averting his eyes, one hand on his other arm, blushing… smiling.

Gorgeous.

“You didn’t make me uncomfortable.” His voice was a soft growl, freed from the echoes of the cage he had been in.

The sound was so quiet and close, so unlike the way he spoke when we were outside. There was no wind to make him more difficult to hear and no monsters to distract me and… his tone melted my heart.

I felt warm feelings in my chest, nice feelings. I really admired this man and all the things he did for me. I mean, I was the ugly murderer who he had to rescue from a boxing competition on the roof! How could anyone have any sympathy for me after hearing that sentence??

I couldn’t believe he was fine with sitting next to me after he saw me.

I couldn’t believe he would take off his helmet for me and shower me with such sweet kindness.

I just couldn’t believe that someone like him would…

I couldn’t bear it.

I looked away, much to my companion’s dismay. I heard the metal sound of a helmet being put back on and let out a sigh. I wasn’t disappointed, I was relieved. I hadn’t meant for things to go this route. I should have never been allowed to see his face like that… he shouldn’t have let me. I didn’t understand his kindness at all, there must have been a mistake, was he just pretending? Had I misinterpreted this entire conversation? Had he been lying to make me feel better? It was very-

 

A mask was poked into my fingers. I turned to look at the bounty hunter, I looked deep into the dark void in his eyes. It felt like he had no answers either.

What in the world had just happened to leave the both of us so speechless?

 

“Put it back on.” He motioned towards the mask. “I don’t like seeing you frown.”

My heart skipped a beat. Oh no. Oh no, this couldn’t possibly be happening. I quickly hid my pained expression behind the thick emotionless layer of my mask. This couldn’t be, was I really that much of a fool? Had I really fallen for a **guy**?!

 

I jumped when Arianna banged her hand against the wall. “Phew!” she yelled. “Finally talked some sense into her!” her smile was as wide as the curtains in an international theatre. The curtains closed and her smile faded, looking at the two of us. “Did I miss something? Are you guys alright?”

Dave gave her a thumbs up and stood up.

I pointed towards the holes in my mask. “I can see now!”

“Perfect!” Arianna beamed. “I’m so glad to have you back, brother!”

“We should leave. The fungal humans are starting to notice us.” Dave explained.

Olivia joined us in the room. She seemed a bit less confident than before. “We killed a few but more will probably follow.” Her voice was completely monotone.

 

Dave decided that we would be harder to detect at night anyway and we continued our adventure without waiting for dawn. Our rations had almost completely run out but we were confident that we could complete this mission. There was only a single corpse left after which we could all return to our beloved Hamlet and relax for a week.

 

We got in our fighting formation; Arianna at the front lines wielding confidence and a smile, Dave right behind her being the scary metal shield that he was, me- the jester who was invited to this slumber party and finally Olivia who showed less emotion than the faceless fungal scratchers that we would surely encounter soon.

I couldn’t help but notice that I would be standing very close to the well-trained bounty hunter during the foreseeable encounters. So close and just behind him. Like a lovestruck stalker… Another wonderful negative trait I would get to add to my arsenal of bad qualities.

I decided that I really had to start redeeming myself in some way. Maybe I could play a better role in battles…


	9. The Adventure Continues

It wasn’t all bad. The feeling I felt towards the silent bounty hunter… they weren’t as mind controlling as I had thought love would be. I had gathered from some of Shakespeare’s famous works, that love was something that would drive people to extremes, make them desperate for each other to a degree that had always seemed off to me. I had fallen I love before, it had happened, but it had always been physical attraction. Physical attraction wasn’t real love.  
I gazed at Dave’s muscular form before me. There was no way in hell that all of that was armour, there had to be a beautiful creature under all those layers. His face had been stunning, I doubted that I wouldn’t be horribly fascinated with his body as well… I couldn’t help but smile at the fact that he was just a bit shorter than me as well, so freaking adorable.  
Was this nothing but physical attraction?  
I averted my gaze defeatedly, no way. I had never even seen him without all of that armour. Not this wasn’t just physical… this was something much more annoying…

It was hard to ignore the fact that we were so close to each other though, it was better that way in combat. Dave gave me some much-needed protection that way… he put some distance between me and the enemies. I wished something would put some distance between me and Dave, I wished some angel would come down from the light and slap the both of us back to our senses.  
“Don’t you know that homosexuality is a sin??” the angel would yell. “If you do not cleanse your thoughts then the light shall never claim your soul!”  
Everyone would probably be surprised by the sudden angel encounter but Dave wouldn’t budge. He would look the heavenly being up and down and decide on the best course of action instantly. I sighed, I bet he would even make sure to not put too much pressure on me in his plans. He was just the kind of person to do little things like that and the thought of that made my chest tighten.  
Why was this happening?  
I wasn’t even that religious… I just knew that people would probably crucify me if they ever found out. I was an abomination already… why did I always have to make my own life more difficult??  
I rolled my eyes when I saw the female cultist staring at us from the shadows. Yes, GREAT, just what I needed to see today! Thanks! Why don’t you mind your own freaking business! I bet you’re in love with him as well aren’t you, well guess what; he’s taken!!

Our party came to a halt. Arianna was smelling the air, trying to tell where the corpse smell was coming from. I looked around and put my hand on Arianna’s shoulder. She stopped sniffing and looked in the direction that I was looking in.  
“Curse the light.” She mumbled.  
The Collector was silently floating around in the direction we were headed in, nearly invisible. I could see his cloak lifting in the wind to reveal countless heads, he was looking for more. There was no doubt in my mind that we would have to fight him.  
“Get ready to ambush” Dave whispered.  
I put my hand on Dave’s shoulder, my expression was diabolical.  
“I have a better idea. A fun idea.”  
I had their attention.  
“If he can’t lift up his arms or open his coat, he can’t attack us, right? Wouldn’t it be funny if we tied him up?” I continued.  
They exchanged curious glances. Arianna was smiling, excited about the idea.   
Olivia put her hands on her hips. “What I wouldn’t do for a chance to examine a monster like that one… I’m in.”  
“Dave has a hook.” Arianna remembered. “But I don’t think you would be able to lasso him like that, huh?”  
Dave scratched his metal helmet. “I know a way.” He looked at me. “But I don’t think you’ll like it.”  
“Try me.” I beamed. This was perfect, I wouldn’t fail him this time!

Dave laid out the plan. He emphasized that they would not let me get hurt this time, absolutely not. They would tie me up, like fishing bait and quickly untie me once my job was over. Arianna would be responsible for untying me and Olivia would protect me from then on. I was surprised by how quickly the plan had been finalized, it had barely been a minute.  
Our hunter tied his hook around my stomach. He made sure it wouldn’t fall of but it also wouldn’t be too hard for Arianna to untie. To test it, he pulled at the rope and I was pulled towards him, bumping into his chest.  
“You’re very unsteady.” Dave concluded. “Change of plans. Arianna, you pull the rope when William meets you, Olivia will do the untying.”  
I didn’t budge during his orders and he didn’t soften his grip. The two-woman nodded and sneaked to the other side of the road. We would trap him in the middle.  
Dave, seemingly happy about how the girls hadn’t been spotted, nodded at nobody in particular before turning his attention back to me. I had been tied up and pulled to his chest, I looked back at him without making a sound.

I expected him to say nothing at all or maybe make a professional clarification as to why he was still holding onto me, with his growly eldritch voice.   
Instead he said “Oops.”   
My giggling almost blew our cover.  
Dave’s cute head tilt made me blush even harder than I already was.  
“Are you sure about this?” he asked.  
“It was my idea, wasn’t it?”  
He made an approvingly nightmarish sound, like a meteorite flying by. “It was but… you already got hurt once before.”  
“Getting hurt is what we do.” I reminded him politely.  
“I wish it wasn’t.” he admitted as he pulled me into a hug. It left me speechless.  
I wasn’t expecting a hug. I wasn’t the kind of person who would get lots of hugs and I didn’t live my life expecting random tackles, followed by hugs.   
Still, if a burly man was to hug me, I would have expected them to hug like a bear! Squishing the guts out of whoever was unfortunate enough to be their victim of affection. I had been wrong. Dave was kind. His hug felt like being wrapped in a blanket. I felt the eerie sensation of feeling safe.   
He was only worried. Hugging seemed normal to him. It wasn’t normal to me. He let go after he noticed I had been silent for too long.  
“The last time I was hugged I was ten years old.” I confessed.  
“Starved for affection?”  
“I’m not.” I insisted, folding my arms defensively.  
“Right.” He motioned towards the floating horror that was slowly coming towards us. “Give them hell.”  
I drew out my lute. By the light in the sky, in the name of everything holy and unholy alike; it was time for me to shine, it was time for a brilliantly deceptive solo.

I jumped on stage with a mighty strum, the force of which was almost powerful enough to break my old instruments strings. I slid right past The Collector and surprising him greatly before continuing the solo, jumping around him and sliding whenever he seemed no longer confused. He hadn’t noticed that during my musical journey I had danced around him 4 times, tying him up with the rope that was attached to me.  
My song ended and I bowed, which activated my finale; bringing down my spear and penetrating the monster from its skull head to the bottom of its large coat. The curtain dropped. A critical blow! It took 49 damage.  
Arianna jumped out of the shadows and in front of me, grabbing my rope and pulling it tight. Dave did the same, resulting in the Collector becoming trapped! Olivia untied me in a quick motion and guarded my panting, exhausted body.

We watched, completely unsure of how the eldritch creature would react to the rope. To our surprise… it just stood there, his head rhythmically banking against it’s cage. It didn’t even try to lift its arms.  
We all let out a sigh of relief. The ropes were tied to trees and we all gathered to look at the monster more closely. Olivia was the first to get within fighting distance of The Collector.   
The skull he had for a head turned black as he glared at the small figure standing below him. We all jerked away but Olivia didn’t even flinch. The skull banged against its cage harder, she didn’t flinch. Finally, the monster calmed down. Looking down at the doctor curiously, awaiting her response.  
Olivia took out her knife.

I sat down on the floor, taking deep breaths to calm down my heartbeat. I was pleased that it was actually going crazy over a legitimate reason for once, instead of actively trying to kill me. Felt like my body was cooperating with me for once. Dave sat down next to me and my heart smirked, speeding back up again just to make me eat my words.  
“You did a good job.” He said.  
Light take me, it was the happiest I had felt in years! It felt like I was a child again, being praised for doing a good job entertaining the kids! I smiled ear to ear, I was very glad my mask was able to not make it so obvious that I was freaking out though.  
“Why, thank you.” I replied, utterly flattered.  
“You’re very talented. I’m lucky to have you on my side.” He continued.  
Were my hands shaking? Perhaps, I wasn’t used to such flattery and it was hard not to jump up and down in excitement. I kept still, collected, dying inside. “I’m glad you enjoyed the show.”  
We heard the sound of a knife cutting into flesh. I looked over for just a moment, just long enough to see that Olivia was cutting a piece out of every head the collector owned. I immediately turned my attention back to Dave.  
“So!” I started, trying to think of something to talk about. “Do you… uh, have… pets?”  
“Where did you earn how to play?” a much better question, assuming he didn’t have a pet.  
“Oh, I partially learned it on my own. Despite everything, I have and always will enjoy entertaining others, I suppose. It’s just something about how people smile and relax when they are having fun… I can’t et enough of it.” I smiled.  
“I can understand that. Justice has that effect on people as well.”  
“You mean when you finally punish a criminal?” I asked, imitating his fighting style with my own weapons. He laughed when I used my lute like an axe.  
“Yes, something like that. Killing the right people, you know. Feels good.”  
“You’re kind of a psychopath, huh?” I noticed.  
“Well… not entirely incorrect.” I decided against that. There was a difference between killing someone in blind rage and killing bad people professionally. Dave wasn’t a murderer. He had a heart.  
That and he was so relaxed and easy going with me! It made it hard to imagine that this guy could actually hurt another person. It felt like he couldn’t even hurt a fly.   
“You have to be a little crazy to be a bounty hunter though.” He continued. “I think you’d make a good one. You already brought one guy to justice, after all.”  
What?   
No.   
No, I didn’t like that. My master never had a bounty. He had never been wanted. I wasn’t some grand bringer of justice; I was a murderer. I wouldn’t stand for this kind of lie.

I stood back up, disappointing Dave once more. Olivia was still busy removing an eye from a horribly familiar looking Vestal. My stomach turned and I decided to just close my eyes and imagine ponies and happy people riding ponies.  
“Hey, are we done here yet?” I asked.  
“Not quite. Let me et a few more samples.”  
I imagined Dave riding a pony. “Do you really need that many samples??”  
“You never know when you will need an eye. They are hard to come by, you know.” She explained. The cutting noises continued. I sighed. This would take a while…


	10. A fresh Perspective

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> No, I mean it. It's literally a different perspective this chapter.

I cleaned the blood on my knife and put all the eyeballs I had collected in one of my emptied vapor potions. I felt somewhat happy that we had used up most of my healing items up to this point, it mean I would be able to take more souvenirs with me.

The Hag’s diary felt heavy and secure in my bag and the new Collector samples filled up my empty bottles nicely. There was barely any space left. It felt good. I felt proud.

This had been a very successful expedition all of a sudden!

I hoped that these samples would lead to some kind of necromantic discovery. Researching the eldritch and paranormal world seemed like a bad idea at first but when reading up on it a bit I had noticed that most of the ‘science’ behind it was based on blood circles and backyard herbs. There was much to be discovered in this field. Much that I could discover.

Interacting with the eldritch on such a level was dangerous and stressful but I had worked on the field before, I had fixed up countless dying soldiers and I was used to stress.

What I wasn’t used to was getting absolutely no recognition. Maybe those soldiers were unimportant but it physically hurt to go so unnoticed!

This was different.

THIS… This would get me noticed.

 

I straightened my back and stretched briefly before wiping the sweat off my masked face with a handkerchief. My team members had very patiently waited for me, I was truly blessed to have such kind souls accompany me on my journey to fame.

I noticed that William was in the middle of a staring contest with that cultist lady.

I sighed. He wasn’t as crazy as he used to be… truly a pity. I would have loved to study his mind further. Maybe I could get my hands on his body at some point though… there was still time.

I frowned at the cultist. She had been an even bigger wasted opportunity. Who was she? What was she? Was her mind broken to the point that she couldn’t differentiate friend from foe, was that why she was following us? No, I knew the real reason.

It was to tease me.

She was remarkable interesting, a human yet she had eldritch powers. If I could only get my hands on her… she was hard to catch though, even harder to stun. She would keep moving out of the way of my blinding grenades or get out of range, it was infuriating.

 

No matter. I was close to a revelation. I didn’t _need_ her. I didn’t _need_ anyone.

I was almost done. So close… then, I would finally have all the eyes on me. My peers would have to respect me! Regardless of what I had done in the past! That would all be ignored; my gender and my past would be entirely forgotten… but my name? It would be remembered forever.

“I’m done!” I informed the others.

“I see you didn’t strip them this time.” Arianna grinned.

“I couldn’t.” I admitted.

Jester got up from where he was sitting and waved the cultist goodbye. “I think we really bonded today.” he decided.

If she was going to stalk us, might as well befriend her. Sure.

We got back in our favourite formation and proceeded by simply walking around the collector. It was still dark which I was relatively happy about. We would probably go unnoticed by the brainless morons that my team called ‘monsters’. It would be a quick jog to the next corpse and then we could finally go back to Hamlet. I was frankly sick of babysitting. I didn’t want to care for any more wounds.

The echoing sound of a skull hitting against its cage increased in intensity and in speed. I turned around, worried. The collector was looking straight at me. I mumbled a few curses under my breath.

No words were exchanged, we all simultaneously decided that it was time to run. Shortly after we started running a snapping sound sent chills down my spine. I sped up, outrunning both Dave and William.

Dave was seriously slowing us down; we were running as slowly as a deer with two of its legs cut off! I didn’t care about the team though; I left the two men in the dust.

Me and Arianna quickly found a hiding spot; a small cave made out of mushrooms. I hid and she waved the two men in as well. We sat side by side in the moist cove and panted silently as the enraged Collector passed us by.

Brainless moron.

 

“Do you smell a corpse nearby?” I asked Arianna. She smiled.

“Let me breath for a moment, I will locate it shortly.” She panted.

More wasted time. Time that could be spent researching my newest samples… I gazed at the eyeballs I had in my pockets. They seemed to look back at me…?

I ignored them.

Soon we emerged from the cave like spiders crawling out of their den. Like spiders we were unsafe in the wilderness. Like spiders, the wilderness wasn’t safe with us.

Arianna lead us through a couple of harmless fights: a few bandits, a lone crown and an owl that quickly flew away the second it saw us. The bandits had been annoying, dealing some damage to Arianna that I had to take time out of MY day to fix. Still, it was a necessary evil. If the dungeons had been easy more research would have been done on them by now. I should feel lucky to be challenged in such a way because if things hadn’t been just the way they were, my male counterparts would have arrived here way earlier than I had. They would have probably hired a personal carriage too, rich bastards.

I hated them… but I wanted to be them. I wanted to get to enjoy life a bit without having to stich up ten wounds everyday. I wanted to look down on people for once, just like they had looked down at me for having tits. I wanted to be just as snob to them as they had been to me!

I wanted equality!

I rolled my eyes when I saw the cultist. Another fight? Really? I readied my blinding powder.

“relax, it’s her.” Dave explained.

I hated hearing him talk. He sounded like a bear who had serious smoking problems combined with alcoholism and lung cancer, possibly because of all the smoking the bear had been doing. I had no idea why Dave sounded like that though. I had been… to afraid to look into it.

The cultist raised her arm and I raised my blinding powder, ignoring our leaders protests. She was standing at a road split and she raised her arm to point to the right. I raised an eyebrow.

“What in the world?” Arianna said.

I threw my powder, she simply dodged and continued pointing.

"Oh, you useless sack of bones.” I mumbled under my breath. This idiotic lady had undoubtably achieved nothing in life except annoying me! Great job, what a wonderful woman! Truly, someone worthy of admiration. She was living an empty, useless life and was probably better off DEAD!

I hated missing, it stressed me out.

 

“What now?” I asked casually.

Dave scratched his mask like a crazy person, who doesn’t know where his mask ends and his face begins, would.

I stopped for a moment while everyone was quiet, waiting for Dave. Something felt odd. Why was I feeling so angry? It wasn’t out of the ordinary for me to feel mad at my teammates but this was… this was something else.

I shrugged it off, it was probably their fault for being so reckless. I had worked so hard for them and all they did was get themselves in stupid situations in an obvious attempt to kill themselves.

I should really teach them a lesson. Show them how their own stupidity could **really** get them hurt.

But I was a professional. Professionals didn’t use violence.

Dave perked up. “Let’s go left.” He decided.

Another excellent decision from our great and cunning leader. This decision had absolutely been worth the 20 seconds of waiting and absolutely couldn’t have been done by just flipping a bloody coin.

“I want to scout ahead first though.” He added.

Huh.

“Are you sure?” the Jester asked, clearly worried. Obviously gay.

“I will just take a peak.” Dave assured him.

I rolled my eyes. What an unnecessary dramatic display. I wasn’t jealous.

 

Our most armoured member moved towards the cultist who quickly retreated and disappeared into the shadows. Dave went left and disappeared behind trees and mushrooms that had grown into each other. The forest looked purple at this time of the day. It felt like the sun would rise soon… It would paint the entire weald a new colour. I wondered what that colour would be.

Everybody flinched and I felt my blood freeze up as we heard a Shambler’s mighty shriek!

Or Dave. That could have been Dave’s shriek.

The roar send shivers down my spine, it was a cry of pain or furry. Highly unpleasant and disturbingly worrying. For just a moment, I hesitated. Whatever that was, was it really worth risking my life over?

I knew the pain that would await me, the horrors I might see, the blood that would no doubt spurt out of me if I complied. I didn’t want to die, not yet, not like this! Did I really want to risk my life for somebody else’s??

…

The answer was obvious.

I was a doctor, after all.


	11. A Confusing Awakening

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This chapter may be the only one told from Dave's perspective.  
> Don't worry guys, we will return to Will's perspective after this one.
> 
> \-------------------------------------------Dave pov--------------------------------------------------

I woke up when food was showed into my mouth. I gulped it down before pushing away whoever was attempting to feed me. My arms were remarkably weak yet whoever I pushed toppled backwards anyway. I felt confused and dazed but quickly decided that I was in no danger.

I couldn’t remember what had happened. I remembered screaming. Screaming because I had been in pain. Pain and then darkness… a nightmare? Had I just gone to sleep? Unlikely, it felt like my brain had been in a blender for a week. Maybe I had suddenly gotten ill.

I decided against the theory when I noticed the state my armour was in. My chest pieces had been cracked and so were my shoulder pieces. My eyes followed the trail of metal shards to a bonfire where I saw my helmet. I could barely tell that it once had been a helmet.

_Oh god, did I suffer brain damage??_

It was dark, stars were shining brightly through the leaves above. They were only stars, yet it hurt to look at them and my mind simply couldn’t handle focusing on them.

It was a beautiful night… a painful night. Around me there were small craters and broken trees, blood splatters here and there. It was very dangerous to camp right after an encounter yet it looked like that’s exactly what I was in the middle of doing. There was dust everywhere… it hurt my eyes. I was completely covered in it.

The bonfire was strange too, just a bunch of sticks and stones and no real firewood in sight. Had we run out of firewood or were my teammates just being cheap?

 

Something terrible had obviously happened and whenever that happened it was my responsibility to own it. I sighed before thinking about how much longer it would have taken us to gather enough money if we had just abandoned our mission after defeating the hag; not that much longer. I had acted foolish, thinking we could move on. I had… only wanted my team to get enough money to have a night of fun. I didn’t want them to return to Hamlet with a frown and half empty pockets just to get absolutely no extra reward for all of their efforts, just because we couldn’t fully complete the mission.

My helmet reflected the peaceful, painfully bright light of the flames. The sound of the fire calmed my nerves. My helmet was in pieces but my mind was still sharp, it seemed.

 If I did have brain damage, it was probably very minor.

I rubbed my eyes and tried to focus on the collapsed person next to me. My push wasn’t that damaging, they had most likely just fainted. It looked like William but that seemed illogical. I was hurt, why wasn’t Olivia here?

Oh.

Oh no.

 

Had she died? Had everyone but the two of us died? Was this Jester even William? He seemed different, different colours. His attire was a lot more earthy coloured than the nonsensical colours William had been wearing.

I took some of the meat on a stick that had been placed next to the bonfire and ate it until the dark spots in my vision fully cleared. I had to fire out what had happened, one thing at a time.

First, myself. I wasn’t injured, no bleeding at least yet it felt like every joint in my body had been dislocated at some point. It hurt to move despite my high pain tolerance.

_There had been a battle that I had lost._

I looked around but spotted no bags and no other people.

_We had run out of food completely._

Did the others go hunting? Had they died? Did the party split up? I had no choice but to focus on the Jester. It pained me to do this. I wasn’t sure if I could forgive myself if this _wasn’t_ William because I knew… I knew if it wasn’t then the poor boy was probably dead. Jesters were notorious for dying in difficult fights and if I had barely survived then…

I carefully limped over to the fainted figure and unmasked them. I let out a sigh of relief.

William was alive.

 

His pulse was faint but there, the only thing worrying was that he felt awfully cold. I took him into my arms, making sure that nothing was broken. He flinched when I touched his ribcage, nothing else seemed off… except his hand. I looked down at his right hand with a bitter expression. It was facing the wrong direction.

I almost winced in sympathy, that must have hurt very badly. I took off his glove to inspect it further. The dim light of the fire made it a bit hard to see but it… didn’t look that bad, surprisingly. It wasn’t swollen or even red for that matter.

I looked at William’s sleeping face.

“Do you have two left hands, Will? Really?”

I did my best to hold back my laughter. And here I had been worried. No, he was just strange. I remembered how bizarre he had been with his chest exposed. His body had been completely non-symmetrical, with his muscles on the right side of his body being larger than on his left among other things. Olivia had decided that it was very probably sibling or parental incest that had caused him to look like this.

Royals loved people like him… Cripples that they could take in and look after like dogs. It was a surprisingly common and easy way to get the public to think more highly of you with basically no effort, since most of these royals didn’t spend much time or money on their ‘pet’.

Poor kid.

“What did your master do to you…” I mumbled.

 

He opened his eyes.

He screamed.

I watched as he jumped out of my arms, flailing and falling to the ground with a loud thump.

“It’s just me.” I explained with my most ‘soothing’ tone. It wasn’t a soothing tone but it was _my_ most soothing tone.

William sat up and inched away from me, his eyes wide open. His hands seemed to be trembling involuntarily but I could see that he was able to move his right (left) hand well enough.

_He hadn’t broken it after all. Good._

“Y-You’re awake!” he stuttered weakly. He wasn’t blinking often enough and his motions seemed fake and unpredictable. He attempted to hug me but decided against at the last second. His hands hovered above my shoulders. “Are you alright?”

I pulled him into a hug. He squeaked, surprised but gave in quickly. I made sure not to put too much pressure on him, I had no idea if his ribcage had actually been cracked. His heartbeat continued to beat wildly for a while before slowly calming down. I felt him relax and nuzzle his head into my shoulder. Not starved for affection, huh?

It was slightly entertaining to watch him struggle to remember the basics of hugging. He was clearly aware that it required some input from him but he wasn’t sure how exactly he was supposed to do that.

I let go of him after he completely stopped moving.

He let out a small disappointed whimpering noise which just broke my heart but… I needed answers.

How to start? Would it be insensitive to directly ask what had happened to the others? Yes. Yes, it would. Of course, I couldn’t ask what had happened to me either because that might trigger him as well and I mean, look at him, he doesn’t need that crap right now.

Just go for the basics, Dave.

 

“Are you hurt?” I asked.

He frowned and looked away before putting a hand on his ribcage. That’s no good… I tried to pet his hair but he jerked away.

“S-sorry…” he leaned into the touch.

“How bad is it?” I asked.

“I can ignore it actually…”

Ignore broken bones… that requires a lot of adrenaline.  A lot of fear…

Was it appropriate for someone like me to ask someone like him if he was insane? How would you even ask that? It seemed impossible to be polite about it and it also seemed impossible to answer.

I decided to just assume the worst, that Will was probably just as mad as the day we had found him. He seemed very fearful… Although, for some reason, he seemed to really trust me. I was hoping he would continue trusting me if I asked the more… difficult questions in an easier to answer format.

“William, I need you to be calm, ok?” he tensed up immediately, looking into my eyes like an injured fawn. I paused for a moment, give him some time to breathe… ad answer.

“Ok.” He said, weakly.

“Did Arianna or Olivia die?”

 

I was relieved by the lack of freaking out.

“No.”

“Ok, good.” I let out a sigh of relief. I hadn’t _completely_ failed as a leader, then. Good.

“You… you don’t think we need them… right?” he asked. I didn’t like the implications.

“Will, did you kidnap me?”

“What?? No!” he moved out of my reach. “W-Well… I mean…” he paused before making eye contact with me again. “You’re not mad… right?”

“No.” I said, with zero hesitation. Parties split up sometimes, for many reasons. I didn’t care why we had split up. All that mattered was to find the others before-

“Olivia… she… she attacked me.” He moved away a bit further while keeping eye contact. “I’m not lying. She did. You were… _dying_ … I thought she would kill you.”

“You carried me away?” I wasn’t sure if he was capable of that.

“No, I defended you.” I tilted my head, he giggled. “I didn’t hurt them… I just kept them away from you and eventually Olivia left.”

“What about Arianna?”

“She was crying.” His expression turned bitter. “Sobbing and screaming that Dave had died.” He took a deep breath. “It was… hard to watch.”

Weird way of putting it… though, he had clearly been through some stuff.

“Where is she now?”

“She went with Olivia.”

I thought about how likely it was for all of that to be true. It was very possible that Will had misinterpreted some things… or just imagined them.

Had Olivia been acting strange lately? It was hard to tell; she never spoke much and she wouldn’t be caught dead without her mask on.

Although she had been a bit tense after stitching up William’s dog bite wounds in the Hag’s house, I had hoped that letting her experiment a bit on The Collector would calm her down a bit.

I knew she loved cutting more then fixing.

“What happened… to me?” I asked. It wasn’t a yes or no question.

Apparently, it wasn’t an easy question either because Will quickly entered a more defensive position, pulling his legs up to his chest. I had been under the impression that such a position would hurt him very much but he didn’t seem to, uh, care?

“You… you…” he started rocking back and forth.

“Was it… hard to watch?” I tried. I was trying.

“It’s my fault.” Will sobbed.

 **Good job** , I thought to myself. **You broke him. Why do you always made people cry?**

I had never been very good with words. My voice didn’t make things easier. Nothing I could possibly tell him would make things easier for him, the things I said usually made people cry more. I came closer to the injured animal that was William. Not too close, I knew he would back away if I did that.  Said nothing and did nothing put open up my arms… and he came to me for a second hug.

 

Huh.

 

“I’m so sorry.” He cried. He wasn’t so cold anymore, probably the adrenaline. Fear like this would weaken the body a lot, leave it anxious and sleep deprived. Will did look very exhausted but there were no large bags under his eyes and he didn’t look like he was starved. There was still hope.

The true mystery was how he had managed to find all this meat.

He was crying quite hard, mumbling trillions of apologies at me. It was hard to see how much I had made him suffer. Whatever happened, he had probably thought I was dead as well. Or, at least very hurt. Poor fool, blamed himself for all of it. It broke my heart.

I didn’t let go of him. I couldn’t.

“We need to find the others.” I said, mostly to remind myself of the fact.

“Do we really? I was… hoping we could… return home together? Just you and me?”

Return home, aww. We had no home but I also really wanted to return to Hamlet, breath in the smell of despair and gamble all night long. Maybe even, gosh, have fun? It felt like that was illegal luxury but I remember that it was a human need or something.

 Still, before all of that-

“I really want to make sure the others are ok.”

“If you say so… though, I’m not sure how they would react to seeing you.”

“Because they thought I was dead? I think they would be pretty happy.

“No, because you’re wearing Dave’s clothes.”

 

 

I had been mistaken.

William wasn’t fearful or paranoid. He was irrational! That changed things, that meant nothing he said could be trusted. God, what _did_ he feed me??

“Will?”

“Yes?” he nuzzled his head into my neck, still very happy to be held.

“Who am I?”

“You’re my Master!” Will beamed.


	12. Irrational Illusions

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trigger Warning: abuse and abusive relationships  
> When Will imagines dialog that isn’t really being said it will be written in italic.  
> Maybe that will mae things less confusing. Maybe.  
> I have no idea how weird this chapter is going to be to you guys but my brain is officially melted.  
> Will refers to the Master as a lot of things, such as Lord or friend. Just saying.

A tragedy and a miracle had happened. It seemed like the most horrible things always happened to the people I cared about most… which was probably my fault. I had done another terrible deed today. Someone… someone I had really grown to trust had died. I had allowed them to die.

They died… right in front of me. It was as if the world had stopped turning. Suddenly, everything had stopped mattering. Everything had been lost. I had finally allowed myself to get close to someone and they had been taken away from me. If somebody as beautiful, as kind and as cunning as Dave could die then… then there was no hope.

Guilt had replaced every emotion I had. Never had I felt so alone before.

It had been my fault. Everything had been my fault. I had killed Dave, I had screwed over people I cared about in a fight _twice_ , I had murdered my Master, I had no home, no friends, no future. I had royally screwed up on every level, yet the gods had graced me with a second chance! Or third… or fourth.

 He had just suddenly appeared in Dave’s empty shell, alive… but dying.

I knew the others wouldn’t understand. I knew Arianna would try to reason with me and I assumed Olivia would try to hurt him, just like she had hurt me. So, I had told them what I knew; that Dave had died. They didn’t want to accept it of course but they didn’t want to fight me just to get to see the dead body either.

So, they left me with my Master.

 

“You were right.” I admitted while he continued petting my hair.

Not only had they undone the terrible things I had done to the great Count Orion Coulston, but they had made him forgive me! It was all I could possibly ask for… I was so incredibly lucky to have him back!

I buried my face in his neck when I saw the blinding morning sun rise. His warmth and protection… I felt so safe. It had been such a difficult night. I had already fainted once… I think. I just wanted to go to sleep like this and never ever wake up. It was simply too perfect.

Master had never hugged me before. He had never allowed me to be this close to him before despite how close we were as friends. Maybe it was because I had clearly proven myself to be a danger to everyone around me, probably not. My Master knew no fear.

Still I had never felt this close to him, this close to my best friend.

What did I do to deserve this? I had been a terrible, irresponsible person. I had spent all of the money I stole on absolutely nothing, ending up in the hellhole that is hamlet and somehow making the place WORSE.

People didn’t even know that was possible, but I did it anyway.

Did the gods really go around granting bad people’s wishes? I decided not to think on that question too hard as it made me very uncomfortable thinking about gods and their life choices. Maybe they had reunited me with my Master to punish me… but then why was he being so nice to me?

Oh, was this an attempt at emotional punishment?

 

My mind went blank.

 

I moved away from my friend to see his face. He was looking down at me, grinning. Haha… I sure… had missed… _that_ smile! It was a vicious smile, I loved and hated it. He was enjoying my weakness. I knew he would do more than just look at me and smile soon…

Something felt off though.

This was NOT how my Lord would torture me emotionally.

He would never just look at me and smile, it was giving me the wrong impression! It felt genuine, I felt happy!

This was all wrong. Upside down. Incorrect.

Something about the morning light hitting his face like this… it made the feeling worse. I didn’t like it. I didn’t want to think about it. Just now had been so perfect!

Had he changed?

Had I changed?

 

I whimpered, unsure how I felt, unsure what to do, unsure about everything.

I felt like I had felt the day I had left him behind. I had realized how empty I was inside. I had realized I needed him in many ways because I had never been without him.

Like an abandoned dog, lost in this world. Life had been so difficult without my Lord! He had been my closest friend, maybe even my only friend. I had been so lonely. Trusting new people, complete strangers… it had been so difficult.

I had missed his friendship so much, the way he would laugh and listen… even the way he would scold and correct me. He did it because he cared, he did it because we were friends. All I did in life, my only goal was entertaining him! Everything I knew I had learned for that purpose.

He had protected me and raised me an accepted me so much… and I had been nothing but ungrateful.

No wonder I had no friends. I was a terrible person. I had always been.

And the one guy who had thought I was worth his time was now…

 

I didn’t deserve friendship. Yet my Master was holding my hands as I sat on his lap questioning everything. He let me think. He let me fail. He let me kill him to let me see for myself in how many ways he had bee right!

He had been right all along and he had done everything for me.

I would do anything for him.

“Tell me what you see.” He said. It sounded like a growl at first but I quickly realized it as an order. The Count loved ordering me around, especially to do things that I didn’t like. I smiled, hoping he wouldn’t ask me to look into the sun.

Because I would do it.

“I see you smiling down at me Master!” I said cheerfully.

“You see me smiling?”

“Yes. Why?”

His grin widened. _“You don’t deserve to smile like me.”_

I could hear his voice more clearly now. I laughed. It was definitely him. No doubt about it. He hadn’t changed at all. He was smart enough to see right through me, cunning enough to spot all of my insecurities. He understood me so well, I loved him for that.

I laughed. I had such a weird laugh…

“What’s wrong?” his fake sympathy made me laugh harder.

“It’s nothing.” I decided. It was nothing. It didn’t matter. “I’m glad you haven’t changed.”

“Changed how?”

I giggled at my own foolishness. “Oh, I had just thought that… well, you hugged me. I thought you had changed.”

“I thought you wanted to be hugged. Sorry.”

 

I stared at my friend, dumbfounded. He would NEVER say that.

“I must be tired.”

I was. Impossibly so. It had been so difficult. It had been hard to not break down crying when things had suddenly turned so grim. A death after so much… bonding and fighting. Not to mention the betrayal I felt about how Olivia treated me. And the tending of wounds, both my own and my Master’s… mostly his.

Plus, the firewood… and the food. God the food…

I was dozing off just making a list of all the things.

I shook my head in an attempt to get rid of my exhaustion. I couldn’t sleep now! Master was watching me! He was taking time out of his day to make me feel happy, I wouldn’t disrespect him my fainting again! He didn’t deserve to be treated like that.

But I felt so drowsy…

So tired.

 

The jump in adrenaline woke me up when my dearest friend grabbed my chin. He held it up in his hand, just like he did back then. I felt so spoiled.

 _“You aren’t sick or anything, right?”_ he frowned.

“No! I wouldn’t go near you if I was, my Lord!” I explained. “I would never risk you getting sick.”

 _“Good.”_ He said, annoyed. _“I’m sure you wouldn’t mind continuing the entertainment, then.”_

I looked at him, puzzled. I knew those words. Those where the words he had said before I had hacked off his hand. I looked at his face, studying it for an explanation.

_Why did I kill him again?_

 

Around me where circus folk, all ready to continue the performance. They seemed worried but determined. Surrounding them were as many masked royals as you could possible put into a room. Standing side by side, far enough as to not interact with the commoners but not so far that they couldn’t see what was going on.

They were all waiting.

I couldn’t leave them waiting!

I turned away from my Master and ran to my old friends!

I had missed the circus freaks! Most of them where stunning young men much more talented then me. They where foreign, brought here specifically to do a gymnastic-lion performance. The lion had been brought here from Afrika. It wasn’t tamed. The young men didn’t even want to near it but I had been instructed to toy with it and kill it at the end of the performance. A brilliant finale to an epic performance…

The Count really wanted to impress.

 

I jumped right back into action and continued the show where I had left off all this time ago. I wasn’t trained as well as the foreigners had been but I still managed to keep up with a lot of their acrobatic stunts purely because I had no death perception.

When it was time for the lion though… I remembered why I had been so angry at my Master. I was put into a large cage, connected to the lion’s cage. The circus boys had never looked so unhappy. I had spoken to them before the show had started. They had told me about the last person they knew who had attempted this. Mind you, I wasn’t even a professional.

Everyone was watching, waiting. They secretly all knew I would die.

But I wouldn’t die. Things were different know. The gods had returned me to this very moment for a reason. The reason being… o-of course this wouldn’t kill me! My Master wouldn’t put me in a situation in like this if I couldn’t win! He wanted to see me overcome challenges, not die.

 

I took a deep breath and gave the boys a thumbs up. The cage door opened.

The cat crawled out, looked at me and jumped.

Its speed was quicker than a dog, which I was not expecting, and unlike a bull it actually wanted me dead.

I was not experienced in this at all.

I jumped and dodged just to be ambushed and grabbed. The lion put its weight on me, squeezing all air out of me and effectively paralyzing me.

I had never been so scared as it tore into my neck.

It was different from normal chokes because this animal had teeth that sank their way into my soft neck, shooting out hot blood left and right. Because I screamed and squirmed so much, it couldn’t get a good grip, biting me multiple times until it got a better angle.

Everyone around me had stopped, a lot of the circus boys that had previously been sitting on top of the large cage had long since climbed down and run away. Some of them were screaming some of them were crying.

I looked at my Master’s face.

He was shocked.

It was as if he had thought of me as indestructible, unkillable. His one toy that would never break.

I said his name one last time before everything went black.

_Orion Coulston_

 

I continued screaming until the lion was finally killed. I panted and crawled away into a corner of the cage. Master looked at me, confused.

“William, I killed the dog. Are you sure you’re alright?”

“It was a LION!” I yelled.

“Lion. Right. And what have we been doing these last 5 minutes?”

I was confused. “Acrobatics?”

“Yes. Great.” He sighed. “I’m going to scout ahead. I don’t want to risk another ambush. Not when there are just two of us.”

“I almost died just now.” I glared at him.

“Will, look around you.” My Master said before leaving me behind, hurt, on the ground. I wasn’t that hurt though. My throat felt completely fine and I only had a faint bite mark on my arm.

It was as if I had woken up from a dream. I was no longer in a castle but outside. I was dazzled by the sight of a brilliantly blue forest! Trees that reached into the sky surrounded me; I couldn’t see where they even ended! The sound of strange birds and distant barking could be heard alongside the rustling of leaves. Magnificent.

 

I looked around in the hopes of maybe spotting one of these strange birds. They made funny sounds that I found to be impossibly endearing. It was strange, it seemed as if the leaves themselves were singing. It appeared as if the leaves were in fact bird wings, singing birdwings, flapping around in the wind.

I turned to look when I heard rustling and spotted a fair lady. She was wearing all white with a strange, out of place looking skull covering her face.

I knew her.

 

“Hey!!” I said, waving at her. She stared back. “It’s a lovely day, isn’t it?”

She kept staring. Of course, a fair noble like her wouldn’t want to be caught speaking to a jester, yet I knew that she somewhat enjoyed my presence. Most nobles did.

“I’m sorry about earlier. We should have listened to you.” I admitted, remembering vaguely that she had tried to prevent a lot of pain.

She looked away, seemingly saddened.

“Don’t blame yourself!” I didn’t want her to feel bad if she was as good of a person as I remembered her to be, kind royals were as rare as unicorns! “I feel like things will be better from now on.”

 

I knew things would be better.

I finally had my Master back! Things would be different now. I had changed a lot since his death, I had seen the consequences of being free. I wanted to be his, for real this time.

She pointed at her own head and I raised an eyebrow. What was she trying to say? Because it felt like she was either insulting my intelligence or my sanity.

“What is it? Do you like my hat??”

Her posture faltered in defeat, I stared as she came closer. She was like a curious wild deer and I was afraid that if I moved even an inch she would be startled and run away. I watched with starry eyes as she came over to me, kneeled down and whispered into my ear.

**“Don’t be fooled by your mind. If you kill him, I will kill you.”**

I jerked away. Her voice echoed in the back of my head; it didn’t sound human. Did she even move her lips when she said that? It was as if the thought had been directly injected into my brain. I shivered in terror as she rose to her feet again and started floating away before promptly being punched in the face by my Master!

“I think he is stressed out enough.” My Master hissed at the surprised lady. She awaited a second blow that never came. “Leave.”

She did.

 

“Master!”

Of course, it was him! He was my knight in shining armour, after all! No matter what happened, if I was hurt, he would get me healed and if I was in danger, he would come save me! He had saved me many times before… he had saved me from my orphanage and from embarrassing moments and even from rich nobles that wanted to buy me!

I owed him my life!

“I feel so flattered that you would do that for me… but maybe don’t punch ladies in the face. It would tarnish your reputation!”

“What reputation?” my best friend said, looking as the fair figure floated out of sight. Strange. My Master had always cared so much about his reputation, more than anything else.

“Well,” I giggled. “I can’t be the only one who thinks you’re brilliant.”

He smirked before coming up to me and picking me up. I almost shrieked in surprise.

“My reputation scares people. There’s nothing to tarnish.”

“It certainly scared me when I first met you.” I laughed; I had been just a child back then. “But I don’t think that others royals would be frightened when they hear that you host the most amazing bull fighting shows.”

“Bull fighting?” his tone seemed condescending, like he was mocking my fear.

 

“Master…” I frowned. “I would do anything to entertain you but you must understand, bulls are scary! A bull ran into me once, don’t you remember?”

My heart jumped when he almost dropped me. I held onto his arm tightly and started apologizing profusely, I had not meant to insult his taste! He had brilliant taste!

I kept apologizing until he put his fingers to my lips. “That explains the big scar… I’m sorry. The image just startled me.”

He went quiet and continued carrying me through the forest. I had no idea where we were going or why I was being carried like a girl. I would be carried away whenever I got hurt but not like this. Usually they would support me and walk me out…

 

I never really regretted getting hurt. Getting hurt was, in my opinion, a part of my job!

Most royals would watch and drool as their jester performed the same juggling performance for the twentieth time. Of course, my Master was different. He would get me trained in the strangest and most dangerous fields in the hopes of new and exciting shows! I loved performing crazy stunts for him, even if they ended badly for me. I knew it would all be worth it for his smile.

Others would joke that he was trying to get his jester killed, I knew that he was giving me a great gift by hiring so many trainers. I would meet people from all over the world! It was such a pleasure to work with them!

I was so lucky.

I smiled in blissful ignorance as my Master continued carrying me through the forest. My mistakes had been undone. Everything was alright.

There were no lions or bulls in sight.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wow, this took forever.  
> So much has been scrapped, it got so long and confusing, wow.  
> No idea how 'good' this chapter.  
> Let's be hopeful though, the next one will be set more in reality and feature more logical things. Yay!


	13. Rational Planning

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Did I say no more Dave pov chapters??  
> I suppose that was before I realised how confusing william's mind really was.  
> Join me on this pleasant trip to fictional reality.

I had hoped that the irrational Jester would be somewhat competent in battle but I had been wrong, this was either due to his now bandaged ribcage or because he was simply batshit insane. Regardless of the reason, my original plan of ‘retracing our steps until we find the others’ would not work without his cooperation. He was refusing to be stealthy and he was acting reckless in combat.

The best course of action was to avoid all enemies until Will’s mind or body was strong enough. If I could somehow send Arianna a message, things would be so much easier… screaming would draw enemies close though so that was absolutely out of the question. A flaming arrow could have been cool but not only where we surrounded by wood but it was also highly unlikely that Arianna would see something like that. A strange idea entered my mind. Arianna had a strong sense of smell.

My stomach rumbled. Right, food was an issue as well.

Eh, I could combine the two.

I looked down at the slender figure I was carrying. His mask was placed on my belt, which felt strange since the poor fool hated it so much to be seen without it. Of course, I had a reason for removing his mask; I would know it when his sanity would return. The second he would ask to have his mask back would be one of the happiest moments of my life.

He studied my expression before rubbing his head against my chest like a cat, impossibly adorable.

 

“William.”

He beamed. “Yes, Master?”

I smiled. “Let’s go hunting.”

He gasped, instantly excited. “Can we?? But Master, I tried hunting before and…”

“You found nothing?”

“Yes…”

“Nothing except the Crone?” He averted his eyes, a mad grin on his face. “Nevermind.”

“What will we hunt?”

“Crows.” I pointed in the air. “They aren’t effected by whatever eldritch curse has destroyed this land. They should be safe to eat.”

Will looked down at his sickle. “Do I throw plates at it?”

I sighed. “No, I hook it close and then you smash plates on its head.”

“Brilliant!” he moved his legs up and down which made him hard to carry. “You’re so intelligent Master!”

“Right.”

“Magnificently smart.” He continued. “I am not a fool to follow you.”

“Yes, yes.” I felt heat reaching my cheeks. He could bloody tell.

I placed him on the floor and together we crawled in a tiny opening between mushrooms. The mushrooms seemed safe and I had seen bird footprints in the area. This place was our best bet.

I made a crow noise and William shrieked. I looked at him, endlessly confused.

“Relax.” I said. “It’s fine. It’s just crows.”

It would be fine. This wasn’t a battle.

 

 

“There are bird noises coming from everywhere…” William said. We had been hiding for a while and his speaking wasn’t making the birds easier to catch. “I think the ground is made out of birds too.”

I shushed him before making more crow noises to attract the birds. It worked; I could see one of them in a nearby tree. William gasped and I placed my hand on his mouth before he could say whatever he was going to say.

I pulled out my hook much to Will’s protest.

“That’s an elephant, not a bird!” he said.

I couldn’t take it.

“Will, I’m your master, right?” I huffed.

“Yes!”

“I can give you orders and you have to obey them, right?”

“Absolutely.” He seemed very serious.

“William, I order you to be quiet and help me kill this bird, I mean… I mean elephant.”

He smiled. “Anything for you, Master!”

I shushed him and he obliged. I pointed at the bird and readied my hook. He quickly prepared his blade.

A ‘wow’ escaped his lips as my hook shot towards the sky, making its way to the unaware prey in an instant.

My aim wasn’t perfect but I caught it by its wing. William sprinted out of cover and quickly cut its head off. He then turned back at me and gave me a happy thumbs up. Cute.

“You’re incredible with guns, Master!” he applauded. “You have so much talent!”

Guns. Right.

“We need more birds!” I yelled, trying to stop him from complimenting me any further. His sweet smile was starting to get to me.

 

“Three down, two more to go.” I whispered.

William nodded.

It had been hours. He was starting to doze off. He had denied it but he had probably not slept at all last night, it was nothing short of a miracle that he was still up. I made another crow noise and kept waiting.

“I might fall asleep, Master.” He warned.

“It’s fine. I think I can kill them myself. You can sleep if you want.”

“I shouldn’t.” he rested his head on my shoulder. I couldn’t aim like that. “I shouldn’t sleep while my master is still awake.” He yawned. “I’m supposed to entertain you. I doubt watching me sleep is very entertaining.”

I frowned. Why did he think like that? That his needs didn’t matter?

“I think you’re cute when you’re asleep.” I said, realizing quickly that that was a very creepy thing to say.

“You can’t fool me!” he joked. “I know what you like. I’ll try and stay awake.”

 

The wind was like a lullaby… slowly blowing leaves and spores around. The only thing keeping me awake was my will and, admittedly, my hunger. Will’s stomach didn’t growl… that and the fact that he was so sleepy made me reconsider how healthy he really was.

“It’s a shame Dave had to die…” he said, drowsy.

“Right.” I huffed.

“I wish I could have done something.”

“Right.”

“Such a pity… I was going to invite him to poker.”

“Right. Wait, what?”

“Yes, I wanted to invite everyone… but I don’t trust everyone. So maybe just me and him, I would have loved that.”

“Just you and me? That would be nice.”

“I would have won though.”

“…did you just. Did you just assume that Dave is bad at poker?” I turned to face him, ignoring the absend birds.

“Well, he is a bounty hunter.”

“So??” I said, offended.

“Traveling from place to place costs money, bribes cost money, hotels and food cots money and all of that to maybe kill one bad guy and perhaps get his bounty, right?”

“If you’re bad at collecting then yes.” I was surprised at how logical he sounded, despite the fact that he was wrong.

“He couldn’t play poker with the leftover money; it wouldn’t be enough.”

“Oh, what do _you_ know about money?”

He met my gaze, sobering up. “Nothing Master… It’s just that I heard that you need a lot of money to play poker outside of your castle.”

“What do you mean?” Another bird had shown up.

“I used to play with your servants, back in the day. We would use cookies instead of money.”

“Aww. Cute.” I aimed for the crow and William quickly gave me space.

“The cleaning lady was wicket good! And she was approximately 60 years old! One leg in the grave and one leg under the poker table, I’ll tell you that!”

“Is that even a saying??”

“Ah and the cook loved cookies but hated betting so he would just join us and fold.”

“Heh, I know guys like that.” I laughed silently.

“Good times. Can’t wait to go back to that!”

“Right.”

“…”

The crow died as soon as my hook landed.


	14. Double-Edged Shield

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> More Dave pov  
> Lot's of dialog. Maybe too much dialog. Oops?

Five bird, carry Will, find water. That was the plan.

Things seemed miserable but the Jester’s enthusiasm was infectious. Every ‘kind’ action I made send him into a state of pure euphoria! He was clearly enjoying every second of this camping trip and nothing made that more obvious that his compliments.

 

Oh, the compliments.

He was buttering me up like one would butter up a piece of toasted bread that had absolutely no flavour. Imagine the blandest piece of bread ever! During a famine! A famine in which this toast with butter would be one’s only meal for the week!

Even in those circumstances, the bread itself didn’t deserve all that butter.

William was pressed up against my chest, caressing face with his hand, half asleep.

“You’re so handsome.” He said.

I hated how mixed I felt about this.

“You’re so nice to me, Master.” He said, swooning over me in my arms.

On one hand his master was CLEARLY not a good person and being ‘replaced’ by him made me deeply uncomfortable, one the other hand...

“You’re my hero!” he smiled sweetly.

…he made me feel so special. Like I wasn’t just another cold emotionless executioner.

I did make an effort to be nice, I always tried to treat everyone with the respect that I expected of them in return. I did… somewhat maybe care about my appearance. I did care what people thought of me.

I did want to be a hero.

But not like this.

 

“Master, you’re all red! You’re so cute!”

I sighed as I felt the heat reach my face. He was giving me the wrong impression. I had to say something!

“Will, uh, William, could you stop calling me ‘master’?”

He smiled. “What do you want me to call you, Ma-“

“Not that. Just anything but that.” I averted my eyes.

“Orion then?” He smiled hopefully.

“No... “I whined. Why was this so difficult?? I was the rational one, why was it so hard for me to put ideas in his head? “Can’t you just call me Dave?”

His smile faded. “D-don’t talk about him.” He glared at me. He glared at me from the corner of his eye, like a snarling cornered puppy.

“Why are you being so defensive?” I frowned.

“You can hit me if you want, I will never call you that.” I wasn’t sure if he was being childish or serious.

He seemed serious.

Why was he risking being beaten? I had a theory but I didn’t want to assume. It wasn’t such a big deal anyway; it was just a bloody name!

“Why?” I asked, defeatedly.

He braced for impact. “He... you can’t replace him.”

 

_It hit me hard._

 

The jester hid his face under his hands and squirmed in my arms. he started apologizing profusely. He felt so small and fragile in my arms. _It was... he was... I..._

 “Am I going to be punished?”

“No. I don’t think I could ever do that to you... I care about you too much.”

“Master...!”

I was going to protect him no matter what. He was special to me. I would rather die than let this angel get hurt any more.

I pressed him against myself, drawing out a small whimper from him.

His cute nuzzling continued. Ugh, it hurt to watch his unhealthy obsession with me blossom. I wasn’t going to enjoy this; I wouldn’t allow myself.

I would return him to sanity; somehow, I would make it happen.

 

 

Monsters.

I shook William awake and he jumped out of my arms at the sight of the maggots.

“No, not the apples. Please don’t make me eat the apples!” he screamed.

I grabbed his hand and showed him behind me. There were four of them but they were only maggots. Nothing to be scared off.

Still, Will was hurt and he didn’t need the stress damage that they dished out either. I would protect him.

“Let me handle this.”

Maggots weren’t very smart. They wouldn’t start crawling away even after they saw one of their friends being decapitated. Didn’t matter to me. A maggot attacked and I easily dodged it. I was fine. I was completely relaxed.

William was losing it.

“DON’T YOU DARE HURT MY MASTER!”

He killed one, which I was pleased about, but he also jumped in front of me which made him an easy target! I tried to get him out of the way but he refused to move an inch. I panicked. He had already shown that he was frightened by ‘the apples’, I didn’t want to watch his reaction to being attacked by one.

I axed a maggot while it was mid-air; trying to attack William.

“Will, get out of the way: that’s an order!”

He screamed and fell to his knees. I shielded him allowing the last maggot to hit me before I finished it off. I panted. That had been too close. This was ludicrous. Why was William acting…. So… irrational.

I sighed and kneeled down to comfort the Jester. He was crying.

 

“I’m sorry Master.”

“It’s fine.” I petted his hair. He really liked me petting his hair, even though his flinching and twitching seemed to prove the contrary. “Just… try to do as I say from now on, ok?”

“I can’t!” he cried out. “I can’t have you get hurt!”

“William, don’t be foolish. You’re more injured than I am.”

He shook his head as if that would disprove the fact. “I’m fine!”

“You’re not. Look, I really appreciate your efforts in nursing me back to health. I really do, let me repay the favour.”

“No!”  he bickered, like a child.

“Fact is, you’re way more hurt.” I said sternly. “Could it be because you didn’t tend to your own wounds?” he avoided my gaze, proving my point. “I highly doubt you ate any of that ‘meat’ you gave me either.”

“None of that matters.” He said, somehow while looking me right in the eye.

“How can you lie to my face like that?” I growled.

He shivered at my words and retreated immediately, cowering in fear. A poor reaction to say the least but I drew comfort from the fact that he wasn’t continuously apologizing this time.

Progress.

 

“I’m not going to hurt you.” I said in my most soothing tone. “It’s just that, you are hurt.” I looked him in the eye. “Do you understand that?”

“I do.” He said. “But that doesn’t matter.”

A shiver went down my spine as one of my biggest fears was confirmed. I don’t know how but he had convinced himself that he didn’t matter. It was alright if he got hit by the enemies because he didn’t matter. It was fine to jump right into danger because he didn’t matter. Being punished for stating his opinion or being injured was ok because he didn’t...

I didn’t even want to think about what his master must have done to get someone this brainwashed and attached to want to murder him.

“It matters. It matters to me.” I said, knowing he wouldn’t listen. “I don’t want you to get hurt.”

“But master, they’ll hit you instead!”

I knew he wouldn’t listen. I was so bad at communicating my thoughts... Still, I had to try. I placed my hand on my armoured chest.

“Hard.” I said before placing my hand on his chest, making sure to be gentle. His ribcage was still hurt. He flinched anyway. “Soft.” I said.

His eyes widened, like he understood.

 

Silently, he stared at my armour. I touched his hand to get him to speak, of course he jerked away.

“Master...” he said finally. “Can we buy me some armour as well?”

I laughed. “No, we can’t.”

“Well then, what can you do...” He mused.

I gazed at his innocent smiling face, doubtfully. “You’re still going to jump in front of enemies, aren’t you?”

“Of course! I have to protect- “

“No! Stop it right there!” I put my hand on his mouth, he twitched. “You will try your absolute best to not get hurt, that’s an order!”

 

His mouth opened and closed again. I let go of him.

“William.”

He looked away. “Yes?”

“What are you going to do during battle?”

“I’m... I-I’m...!!” Teats started flowing out of his eyes. “I’m going to watch you get hurt!”

“Yes.” I said confidently. “That’s what I want you to do. Don’t get hurt. Stay behind me.”

“But Master!” His sobbing continued. I was used to sobbing. People would cry a lot around me, I would not change my mind just because of that. “I couldn’t bear it!”

Oh.

 

Stress.

It would be very stressful for him to see me get hurt.

I groaned, cornered by his argument. Fuck, I didn’t know what to say?!

“William, I...” I grabbed his head and pulled it against my chest, he tried to get away but only briefly. “Light take you, William.” I hissed, quiet enough for him not to hear me.

“I love you Master.” He spoke into my chest.

“Even if I don’t deserve it?” I mused. “Even if I beat you all day?”

He leaned into my touch. “No matter what.” 

I sighed.

Hm...

Why would he kill me if he loved me so much?

Would it be cruel to ask him?

 

Yes.

Yes, it would.

Ugh, he didn’t deserve an idiot like me, someone so incompetent in every aspect. William deserved professional help from people smarter than me. He deserved to be away from dangerous monsters yet I had brought him here.

I had been such a monster. So uncaring and cold, as always.

I hugged him tightly.

“Ah! It hurts.” He whispered.

“Oh. Sorry.” I hugged him less tightly.

“No, it’s fine. I’m sorry. It was... it was an instinct.”

His apologises slowly faded as his body leaned more and more against me. He stopped trying to keep himself upright and shaking faded. He wasn’t fully asleep yet but he was clearly very tired.

We would find water soon. Then we could finally camp.


	15. Dinner with a Stalker

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I laughed while writing this! I missed laughing while writing this.  
> Expect some amount of fluff with your usual serving of grim angst.

Ponds were not as rare as one would think, in the Weald. The dogs and Hags had to drink water too, after all. Sometimes enemies would surround areas of water but, again, ponds weren’t that rare and  I wouldn’t say that we were really ‘lucky’ to have found one completely deserted.

The water looked green, even under the dark purple night sky. I had tested it though; it was perfectly clean. The pond was surrounded by stone and moss. I sat near a circle made out of stones with small sticks gathered in its centre.

This was a perfect spot to camp for the night.

 

Two stones smashed together created a spark. Not everyone could do it right but I had years of experience under my belt, the flint quickly granted me fire. I returned the flint neatly into my pocket.

I looked at the small fire. If I cooked the birds slow enough, the wind should carry the smell through the entire forest. Arianna knew the spices I used; she knew I always carried them with me. She knew this smell.

If she was still alive, she would find us.

I was a bit worried about the fire going out or dogs finding us, though the diseased dogs here didn’t really care much about cooked meat. I was hopeful that they would stay away from us.

 

Will sneaked up on me poorly, grabbing my shoulders in an attempt to surprise me.

“Bo.” He smiled widely.

I was so done. I was so done with today. My back and my arms hurt, I was tired and I hadn’t eaten all day. William had admittedly made this terrible situation a lot less lonely and way more bearable but I doubted that his enthusiasm would cure my needs.

I just wanted today to be over already.

Would I play along with him regardless? Oh, absolutely.

“Yikes!” I said. William giggled.

“I found some more spaghetti!” he grinned.

Ah. More wood for the fire.

“Good work!” I smiled sincerely, grateful. “No, don’t eat them.” I took the sticks away from him. “They might be poisonous.”

“Riiiight.” He giggled before sitting down next to me.

We both looked into the fire for a while, watching as the wood popped and crackled and turned red, black and grey, the familiar smell of smoke surrounding us. I put the cleaned carcass of the first crow on a stick and jammed the stick into the ground, close to the flames.

Find us, Arianna.

 

“It’s so warm.” William tried to reach into the fire but I slapped his hand away. “Ouch… sorry.”

The fire crackled.

The crow cooked.

We waited in silence.

I wasn’t bothered by the silence. I was used to silence a lot. One had to be in order to become a bounty hunter. Traveling a lot meant being away from friends and family and it also meant that most relationships were temporary and professional. Not much friendly banter and many lonely nights.

Silence could feel depressing… but today it felt comforting. I embraced the silence.

Until I noticed that William was acting uneasy.

He was looking into the shadows, fidgeting with his sickle and glancing at me worriedly from time to time.

 

“What do you see?” I asked calmly.

“Ah… It’s nothing… I think I must be tired.”

Very likely but that was exactly what bothered me. It was a rational conclusion to draw.

“Still don’t want your mask back?” I tested.

He looked at me, confused. “My mask…? I don’t… oh.” He giggled. “I used to, yes. But I didn’t wear one when I was with you! I won’t wear one now for the same reason.”

“That reason being…?”

He shrugged and looked away. “You don’t like me wearing a mask.”

“Oh… but you like it, right?”

“A lot…” he shivered softly.

“I like your mas-“

“Don’t lie.” He huffed.

“Right.”

Silence. More uneasy fidgeting. I put my arm around him, he flinched and then relaxed a bit. He always flinched. Every time. Especially when he didn’t see it coming.

 

I felt like it would be rude to ask… maybe even make the behaviour worse because I could easily picture the conversation in my head.

‘Why do you flinch Will?’

‘Oh… well, because I’m never sure if you’re going to hit me or not.’

‘Oh.’

‘Please don’t hit me.’

‘I won’t.’

And then the flinching would get worse because he would be more self-conscious about it. Or maybe he would think that it bothered me which would make him more nervous and twitchier, probably resulting in more ‘begging not to be hit’.

Something similar had happened when people had confronted me about my voice. I couldn’t really change it so they had ended up making me feel worse about the way I was. I really did sound like a chain-smoking wolf but… I mean… yeah.

But maybe that was just me.

 

The crow looked about done. I took it’s stick out of the ground and handed it to William before jamming a second crow stick into the ground.

My hopes of William eating and gaining some health and sanity were thrown down a well when I saw him eyeing the food in disgust. Ugh… nooooooo. No, no, no.

I sighed. “What is it?”

“Master… you’re not going to force me to eat this, right?” he sounded scared.

“Maybe I will.” I confessed. “Why?”

I shouldn’t be this honest. His expression turned horrified and he moved away from me.

“I don’t deserve this.” He hissed at nobody in particular.

“What is wrong with the food.” I asked because I genuinely had no idea what his tiny head was imagining.

“It’s rotten…” he whispered, shily.

 

Ah… I had thought this might happen but I had hoped it wouldn’t. It would be worse if he ate and then threw it all up so in a scenario like this… but I couldn’t just let him starve! I decided to try something. I took the food from him and covered his eyes. I waved the crow around in front of his face.

“It smells like chicken, right?”

“It smells rotten…” he whimpered. He backed away a bit but not much, it was as if he was fighting himself to obey me.

It hurt my heart to see him like this. It hurt me even more to do this.

“Can you try to eat… some of it?” I whispered.

“M-Master… last time I got really sick. I haven’t even been able to eat normal apples since then, they just… they just deeply disgusted me ever since you… ever since…” his words turned into mumbled whispers.

Rotten apples. Was that why he called the giant maggots apples?

 

I was curious.

“What did you do last time? Why did I make you… do that?”

He was taken aback a bit, he seemed to take it as an accusation. It wasn’t an accusation.

“I… I betrayed you.” Oh? “I stole grapes from the kitchen.”

Oh.

“I can probably buy you grapes when we return to hamlet…” I thought aloud. “They should at least have dried grapes… probably.”

I returned my attention to William.

Should I make him eat… no. the answer was no. Even if this wasn’t actually rotten food, I wasn’t his master. I wouldn’t be cruel to him unless it was absolutely necessary.

Him eating right now was necessary… but he wouldn’t die without food.

 

Still, I was worried. Maybe I could try a different approach? Soup. Right, I had considered making soup at some point but then I had decided that, no, grilling food was way easier. We didn’t have a pot anyway and my helmet was… not going to cut it at this state.

I looked around our campfire for something that could be used as a pot. I had no items on me… Will’s mask could be used as a plate but not a pot… clothing would burn and soak, my metal plates had holes in them, the cultist’s helmet could-

I looked at the cultist acolyte who had joined us around the fire.

Since when… had she been there? Had I really been that focused on Will to notice her. Had Will been aware of this??

The cultist turned her attention from the fire to me.

Was I scared?

No.

 

No, I was fucking done. I was done with plans, I was done with enemies, I was so done with stress and if we had just listened to HER things could have been a lot easier.

I sighed. “Hey…”

A name. She needed a name.

“… Shade.” I decided. She was VERY shady.

I was never good with ladies. Never. They didn’t like me; thought I was creepy. Fair. I didn’t like them either. Yet, the cultist lady nodded. Good.

“Can I borrow your skull-helmet?” I said.

She stared, because of course she did. It had zero effect one me. Slowly she took it off, much to my surprise. I had assumed that maybe she didn’t have a face or something, or maybe it was a religious thing and she was to never take it off or something… or maybe I just didn’t expect to see someone who I had never seen without their helmet take off their helmet.

 

After the thing was fully removed from her face, I decided that my first guess wasn’t that much off the mark.

William screamed, though I wasn’t sure what his eyes showed him, my eyes showed me a woman with two hollow eyes behind which a strange octopus like creature was moving. Its tentacles were leaking out of the eye holes and the ears, moving calmly and rhythmically with her breathing.

I was surprised but not scared. I was too tired to be scared.

“Thank you, Madame.” I said, before reaching out for the helmet. “I hope you don’t mind me using this as a pot. My friend here is– “ I paused. “Though, you probably already know that.”

She nodded. I was slightly amused by how calm we both were, as if this was the most normal event to ever happen. Fine by me.

 

“Master…” William whispered. “That lady is the Queen!”

“Right.” I sighed.

“Didn’t you want to talk to her?? Since always?”

“I don’t like women.”

I was so done.

“Master…!” he huffed. “This could boost your reputation immensely!”

“I don’t have a reputation. I’m a bounty hunter, nobody bloody likes me.”

William went silent but kept glaring at me. I had no idea what he was thinking or why he was suddenly confident enough to glare at me. I ignored him and filled the helmet with water. I tore one of the uncooked crows into smaller pieces and put all the pieces into the water. I could tell already that this would make a poor soup but I added some spice in an attempt to redeem this disaster somewhat.

 

“I can’t believe you’re ignoring her.” William hissed. “And after almost killing me for your reputation.” He added, more silently.

I jammed the helmet’s weird ‘affliction’ spikes into the ground, so that it was touching the fire. It would probably be hard to get it out of the fire once it looked done but that’s life for you. If you can’t find a pot, use the face of your enemy, that’s what they always say, right?

I handed the cultist lady the most recently cooked crow and started eating the one that Will refused to eat... while Will watched me in horror. It was moderately delicious, partially because I was starving.

“M-Master!”

“Oh, my Queen.” I joked. “You have such lovely black hair.”

The joke was that I had cleverly confused his intentions. Instead of stopping eating I had talked to the ‘Queen’ instead!

I looked over at William for approval. He was stuck between repulsively disgusted and encouragingly proud. I laughed at his expression. He wasn’t sure how to respond to my laughter either.

 

**“Don’t like women…”** she said, without saying anything. Her words were only heard in my mind. I shuddered, she frowned. He voice wasn’t anything I had ever heard before. Saying it was creepy would be a huge understatement, it was horrifyingly alien. It felt like I should have never heard that.

Just like she shouldn’t have heard me say that.

“Y-Yes…” I laughed nervously. “They’re just so… not good at fighting…” I looked at her for feedback.

**“So, Arianna…”**

“Ah…” I thought about it. “No. No.”  shook my head.

**“Olivia is good at fighting.”** She shrugged in the form of a question… or something. Her every move felt elegant but unnatural.

“Are we gossiping? Is that what’s happening?” my nervous laughter continued. It was entirely involuntary.

**“I am trying to understand.”** She paused. **“I thought I understood you.”**

I looked at her.

 

“Is that why you follow me? You’re trying to get into my head?”

She kept staring for what felt like an eternity. Planets moved while her gaze continued to burn holes into my body.

**“No.”** she paused. **“I am trying to understand.”**

“Ok.” I shrugged and went back to eating. The lukewarm chicken felt so hot in my mouth; her voice had left my body freezing cold. I inched closer to the fire and William joined me, cautiously crawling back under my arm. I had assumed he was scared too but he looked more worried than scared.

Because, of course he was worried about his master.

“Master, you’re really pale.” He petted my face. “Maybe you should eat something else.”

“Make me.” I mused. No… that was mean. “Will, go talk to the Queen instead. Go talk to, uh, Shade.”

Shade nodded approvingly. **“Come to me, young one.”**

“You know what? Nevermind. Stay.” I decided but it was too late.

The ball of enthusiasm had already bounced his way over to the women. He began to gleefully tell her about all the royal friends his master had. It was a long and confusing list of relationships and ranks; I couldn’t follow at all.

Shade just nodded and… smiled.


	16. Food and Punishment

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Still a Dave pov but I know that our one true protagonist is William!  
> There is a pov change in this chapter so be happy I guess.

William made adorable noises of happiness while he ate, I couldn’t help but silently watch him. Shade eyed me carefully.

**“You love men.”**

I shrugged, innocently. She couldn’t prove it anyway…

**“It’s confusing… I have seen you with women before… at the brothel.”**

A shiver went down my spine. Everyone who entered Hamlet agreed to the unspoken promise of never speaking about who they saw go into the brothel as well as what happened inside. It was an oath that everybody understood the purpose of and anyone who broke it would be shunned by everyone who witnessed the act.

Such gossipers were almost as frequently avoided as potential team killers like William.

If you were banned from the Brothel, the word wouldn’t spread. We were just a bunch of men put under the heel of gods, we deserved to enjoy ourselves free from judgement.

 

This woman had broken that oath.

Why did she do it? Why was she stalking me? It didn’t look like she understood that what she did was wrong. She didn’t seem to even remotely understand me.

I had no intention of trying to justify her actions.

I glared at her silently.

She had insulted me greatly.

**“Explain yourself.”**

I got close enough to her face to make her back away.

“It’s because ‘deviant tastes’ aren’t allowed there.” I hissed.

She put her head in her hands, despair spreading across her face. There was nothing I could say.

I suppose her feelings were mutual after all: I did not understand her.

 

I inched away, returning my attention to William and continued watching him eat. He seemed to clear the feeling of guilt in my chest. What a pure boy. He had been very hungry; he didn’t even care the soup was bland. Why did he enjoy rotten apple soup so much?

Well, it was the only other food I could offer him so I wasn’t going to complain.

I put another crow near the fire. This was the fourth one. I wasn’t sure whether or not Arianna was going to show up anymore but… I was still hopeful.

 

\--

William pov

\--

 

I was so grateful for this wonderful soup! It wasn’t every day that a fool could enjoy the same delicacies as royals did, together WITH actual royals! A queen and my Master, both sitting side by side! What a wonderful day!

I hadn’t been asked to entertain them either, it really sounded like I could enjoy this day without a catch. Master would be happy because he bonded with somebody important and I wouldn’t be hurt by bulls or throwing knives!

 

Everything had been going perfectly until I couldn’t help but overhear… certain accusations.

Not only did the Queen accuse MY MASTER of going to the Brothel, which he would never do, she also claimed that he… my Master did not have sinful feelings for men.

They went silent after that. Worryingly silent. This was very very bad. I could be beaten if I didn’t interfere.

“Your Majesty, what has upset you like this?” I asked the Queen. She completely ignored me, as a fair lady like her should. It wouldn’t be right for her to acknowledge the existence of someone as unimportant as me. yet, here I was and I knew she could hear me. I knew I could make her believe me.

**“Are you aware of this?”** she asked. It felt like she was searching my brain for answers with her eye-holes. She had very strange eyes…

“My Mater and I share a very pure relationship.” I explained. “He has never touched me.”

**“Never?”** she raised an eyebrow. I noticed my mistake.

“Ah… well, he has shown a lot of change since I killed him.” I confessed.

She stared.

 

I had officially lost my audience! Oh, I had been such a fool to mention that! Now she would never believe me!

It was… strange though. My Master would hit me with his belt or a wet cloth or he would even tell guards to carry me away into my room where I would be locked up for a while but… before now… he had never touched me. It was quite disturbing. I couldn’t help but flinch every time he committed the strange act, it was as if my entire body was shaken by the change in him every time I felt his hand on me.

She focused on my master again, a good choice. Maybe after talking to a sentient mess, she would notice my Masters hidden brilliance. My Master frowned at me.

“Pure relationship, huh?” he said. The queen focused on his expression immensely, she was clearly interested. Master was clearly not.

I made panicked hand motions towards the important woman standing right next to him. “Talk!”

He shook his head. Ugh. What the hell?? How many times had he tortured me over this?? His reputation was my Masters everything?

 

Was this even my Master?

He was way more protective than his usual self, way more forgiving as well. Despite everything, he hadn’t even hurt me once this entire time! Well, except the lion thing. I was not fine with the lion thing. Still, he was action very strangely.

It was as if… he didn’t care about royals… but he cared about… me.

I laughed hysterically, surprising both my Master and the Queen.

“Oh, I just thought of the funniest thing!” I explained.

“Right.” My Master replied, cold… angry. Furious! Certain features of his face seemingly morphed, turning into golden fur and furrowed large eyebrows surrounded by a mane.

I was almost glad to see his expression change like this. I had been worried. And although I would be hurt now, the pain would also finally put me to ease. I would face the consequences of my actions and be freed of this terrible guilt I felt inside me at all times. I wanted to be purged by my Master. I did really want it. I did.

 

The Queen got up. **“I need to think.”** My Master nodded **. “Thank you for the meal.”**

“Thank you for… for warning us earlier.”

She turned to him. **“Are you really thankful? If I had pointed in the opposite direction, you wouldn’t have been hurt at all.”**

“I’m fine, aren’t I? And now I know that you are strange but still an ally.”

She smiled at that. I really liked her smile.

She left as quickly and as silently as she had appeared.

 

_We were alone now._ A terrible feeling blossomed in my chest.

“I have been a terrible Jester!” I laughed nervously. “Master.” I turned to him. _“That’s a lovely axe you have.”_

I smiled brightly. He grabbed the blade gracefully, examining it. His eyes were almost cat like and they shone inhumanly in the dim light. A chill went down my spine. I was afraid but that was fine. Punishment was inevitable. I had waited to be punished all day.

 “Thanks.” He growled. “I haven’t named it but I have grown very used to it over the years. Probably bought it around 6 years ago? I was richer back then, I could afford things like beautiful weapons.”

It didn’t even… sound like him.

“Master…” I was worried. “Did we run out of money?”

Was that why he was being nice to me?? Had they killed his high horse? No, no, that wasn’t possible. It couldn’t be. I couldn’t even imagine that. I didn’t want to.

“Not we, I.” he clarified. “That’s why I’m here.”

“You… came back to life because you ran out of money?”

 

Something was wrong. I felt my hands shaking. Master picked up on that. He came closer, still carrying that axe. I crawled away but I knew better, running wouldn’t save me. It wouldn’t make me feel better either. I couldn’t help but smile teasingly. It had been so long… and I really deserved it this time. I had been a terrible, horrible person. I **wanted** this to hurt. I wanted him to come closer, to tell his guards to grab me so that he could more easily cut off my fingers. One. By. One.

A finger for every mistake I had made.

Did I even have that many fingers?

I yelped when he touched me. He pulled me into a hug and my mind went numb.

A hug.

A hug?

Why? How? How was he not disgusted by me? Why did he… care? Why wasn’t I being punished? Why… was he even still alive?

“Master. What are you doing?” I asked.

“Uh…” he let go. “Sorry. I guess this is weird after what you heard about me, right?”

“Master…” I frowned.

“I mean, I do like you but… but not in that way. It has to be mutual for me to feel that way, you know?”

“Master!”

 

I was terribly confused. I was feeling… dizzy. It wasn’t right. Why were we even in this forest? Why were only the flying bird’s edible and not all the other tree and ground birds? Why did my Master… care? I wasn’t worth caring about. I was the last person on earth who was worth caring about!

I felt a hand on my shoulder.

“Are you alright?”

_I must be tired. Of course._

Things were blurry, spinning. My head hurt. I wiped at my eyes and tried to focus. The wings on the ground were vibration, flattering, ready to take off and fly away. They were making me lose my balance, they were making me feel sick.

“Don’t throw up.” Master groaned. He pulled me into another hug and pressed my head into his chest. The birds… calmed down when I couldn’t see them. Such shy birds. “You’re tired.”

“I’m fine.” I sighed. I felt better now. “I think I’m just tired.”

“I can keep holding you like this if it would help you sleep.” He offered.

So kind. So gentle.

 

He was really reminding me of Dave. He was what I wished me and Dave could have been. If I hadn’t allowed him to die, of course.

“Master… I can’t sleep while you’re still awake.” It was really hard to not fall asleep. I couldn’t see anything in this position though I… I couldn’t and didn’t want to ask Master to let go of me. It wasn’t something I could ask for. I did… like it. Warm and… kind. Too kind.

I still wanted punishment but this? It was the warmest feeling in the world! Love that I simply did not deserve, it was as sweet as stolen honey. Honey that could be used to feed royals or sick children… but that was wasted on me.

It was so disgustingly sweet.

 

I hugged back.

 

Ah… The wings made motions that synchronised with his heartbeat. The warm feeling reached my face and my fingertips. Hard pieces of broken armour dug into me in this position but I could also feel his soft skin under my fingers.

His clothes had been torn in very few places but I had found a spot on his back and I wouldn’t let go. Who knew that my master was just a tender under his robes as I was under mine. I didn’t know what royal flesh felt like; I had never even felt the touch of his hands before recently.

This was clearly too much for a fool like me to handle.

I let go of him and he let me out of the embrace.

That felt beautiful, was what I wanted to say.

“I could stay awake for you forever!” is what I ended up saying. Same meaning but less selfish.

Master groaned. He eyed my expression, I was sincere. He rolled his eyes and looked away. “I have… an order for you.”

I gasped. “Punishment?”

I couldn’t keep it to myself any longer. He shrugged and continued. “Sort of? Maybe?”

“Do you want me to stay still?” I asked. If it was an order I would do it. He didn’t need guards to hold me down while he cut me.

“Something like that.” He guided me into a laying down position. I adjusted to make myself more comfortable, this was going to hurt. “Perfect. Now close your eyes.”

I did. I was confused by the inactivity after the order.

 

“Master?”

“Yes?”

“When will the punishment start?”

“This is the punishment.”

Ah! I understood! It was a test! A test to see if I could stay awake for him despite the terrible circumstances, he had placed me in! Obviously, I could do that. I had suffered far more for much dumber reasons!

But…

“Master, is this really entertaining for you?”

“Yes. No more talking.”

The punishment for falling asleep while on duty would be harsh, I shivered at the thought. This was one of the few orders my master had given me today, I simply had to obey it! I had to. He had already been so forgiving and so nice, I couldn’t let him down.

 

I flinched when I felt a hand on my head. The hand removed my headwear entirely for the purposes of being able to pet me more properly. Perfectly rhythmical hand motions massaged my scalp, it was agony! I was starting to see weird colourful shapes and I couldn’t help but stretch my toes to try and wake myself up, surely that didn’t count as moving.

“Master I’ll fall asleep if you keep that up.” I whispered.

“Right.”

I couldn’t ask him to stop it. I couldn’t ask him to stop unless the pain was more than I could handle, it would be disrespectful to speak otherwise. I didn’t want to disrespect my Master. He didn’t deserve that; he was a really good friend and I had nothing BUT respect for him!

My list of crimes was already long, I couldn’t bear adding ‘disrespecting my only friend in the world’ to the list. No, I couldn’t fall asleep! I simply could not! I didn’t want to be punished for that as well... the list had grown a lot. A long list. Thinking of words made me imagine pages on a book. Hundreds of pages of agony… Like a diary. I kept a diary. I remembered keeping a dairy…

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The next chapter is going to be miserable.  
> Yet, I see fluff on the horizon. Stay determined guys.


	17. Flashbacks

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> That's what this is. Flashbacks in journal format.  
> If you don't like flashbacks you can skip them, friend :)

I looked at the bunch of papers covering the desk before me. It vaguely resembled the desk of a financer or similar smart person, or at least what I imagined their desk would look like. They were filled with weird complicated words that I didn’t understand and every now and then they mentioned my name and another name that was way more stupid. I had heard that Jesters were given silly names but I was really hoping that people would call me William regardless of that.

The back of the pages were empty and I couldn’t help but pick up a pen and write down my thoughts. It had been a whole day since I had been brought here from the orphanage and nothing had really happened since then. I was starting to get really bored. I decided that nobody would mind me using these papers and entered my first journal entry ever!

 

June 6th (Age 11)

It’s my second day at the castle, hooray! Honestly, I think I’m really going to miss my old friends. They made fun of me sometimes, sure, but I had really grown fond of them and our Mothers. I shouldn’t think about it too much, after all; this is the opportunity I have been waiting for all my life!

I will finally be a professional Jester!

And to a royal count, of all people! A royal person of, uh, some kind of high status! I’m not sure but the Mothers told me to be super respectful or I might die? I think they were joking about the last part but maybe not… I’m not sure.

Anyway, I haven’t really seen much of the castle yet. I have been shown to my room and been told to not leave it until the lord returns home. I’m assuming home is this place and that the lord is the count! I have met him before, he’s kind of creepy but he really liked me so I really like him!

I’m not really sure what to call him when we meet, I think I’m supposed to call him count or lord but I’m not sure.

I just checked and the door to my room is locked. I’m kind of hungry, I wonder when I will be let out.

 

 

June 7th

I got some food from a funny dressed lady yesterday, she just opened the door and put a plate and a bucket on the floor before leaving. I yelled that she should come back but she didn’t and I couldn’t follow her because she locked the door!

It wasn’t a lot of food and my tummy is really hurting today. I’m really hungry and tired, I don’t know why I’m tired.

The lady brought me food again! I asked her if I could have more but she said no and she didn’t answer when I asked her why. I think maybe they have less food here, maybe the count is a bit poor or maybe he doesn’t know that I eat a lot. I’m not sure.

I fully explored my room today and I almost died when I found some bugs! There was one under my bed and two under the bookshelf so I went to the desk to write but then there was one under the papers, ew!!! They are so huge! I’m really scared now. I screamed and yelled for help but nobody came, I’m sitting in the middle of my bed and I’m keeping watch. They won’t sneak up on me!

 

 

June 8th

My tummy still hurts a bit whenever I get really hungry but it’s not as bad as it was before. I got some soup today, the food here is really tasty! I didn’t get anything like this back home but I got more food back home so there is that. I begged the lady to kill the bugs but she showed me away and left. I think I have to kill them myself.

 

 

June 9th

I killed all of the bugs who were hiding and scaring me!! They were really scary but I finally did it. I threw books at them until they all died, I still have goose bumps. I’m sure the count will be really proud and happy when I tell him I killed them though! I know that I would be happy to hear that my castle now has 4 bugs less in it!

I looked into the books on the bookshelf but I don’t understand a lot of the words which is really unfortunate because they don’t have pictures in them. I hope they can teach me what they mean here because understanding the sentences in them makes my brain hurt. I really want to understand them because there is really nothing else to do here and I’m really bored! I

already read all the documents on the papers and I already drew lots of pictures. There is a window here but I don’t want to sit inside all day and look out of the window like a lovestruck girl! I rolled around on the floor a bit since the bugs were all dead but that got boring quickly.

 

Ok so I was just singing and something really weird happened.

Usually, when I start singing people gather around me and I kind of change the lyrics to make the song funnier and its super fun but today I sang really loudly and nobody came. I even listened to the door to see if friends had gathered outside but I didn’t hear anybody. I do miss the orphanage, I felt way more at home there and people were a lot nicer. I hope this is all just a misunderstanding.

Also, I haven’t gotten any of my things from the orphanage which I’m really worried about, I hope that they will at least give me my guitar back! If I got that I could sing better songs and if I got my playing balls back, I could juggle and stuff but right now I have nothing. It’s really boring. I hope I get my stuff back soon.

 

 

June 10th

The food lady hit me today, I couldn’t believe it. I was holding onto her because I was very lonely and I thought she would eventually stop struggling and just hug me back but she slapped me! I’m crying right now; I hate this place.

 

I came up with a few jokes:

What do you call a mean food lady? Rotten.

What food do food ladies give to kids when they want a hug? Onions.

What do jesters and food ladies share at lunch? Beef.

What do you call young jesters? Potatoes, because they are locked up and can’t move.

That’s all.

 

 

June 11th

I feel so lonely. This is so mean. I can’t believe I was excited to come here; this place is horrible! I was raised to be more polite than these people and my Mothers were poor! I thought servants and stuff were supposed to be polite and fair. I was so wrong! This place is nothing like home! I was hungry at home sometimes too; we were many kids after all but never every day! I was never ignored like this or slapped for no reason! Kids made fun of me but only when I was undressing and I made fun of them better so it was fine! Here they don’t even stay long enough for me to complete a joke! I don’t even know if my jokes are good or not! I’m so angry!

 

I tore the pages out of one of my books and now I’m hiding under my bed. I wonder if anyone will be mad at me.

 

I screamed and yelled until my throat hurt and I put all of the pages in front of the door so the food lady will see them. I’m hiding under my bed; I wonder what she is going to do.

 

She told me I’m an imbecile and left. I hate this place.

 

 

June 12th

I spend most of today imagining about home and about how my friends would laugh if I told them all of my new jokes. Here are some of the highlights:

What do you call an ant that falls on its face and drops half of its food before entering its home? A servant.

You’re an imbecile, says the servant. Come here and arm-wrestle, says the jester.

Which book is the biggest page-turner ever? The one that I’m walking over right now.

Why are the children locked in during a fire? Because the Mothers haven’t returned home yet.

Name a rich royal who is supposed to be all great and royal but sucks at math? The count.

 

I was given fish today. I hid under the bed and glared at the servant until she left. I hope I get somebody new soon.

I tried to find a way to escape but the window is way too high up and I hurt my arm trying to break the door, that was pretty dumb of me.

 

I can’t sleep. I keep hearing bug noises but I have searched everywhere holding a book and moved all the furniture and there is nothing there! I’m really scarred I can’t find this bug. I’m going to sleep in a corner and hope the bug doesn’t come near me.

 

 

June 13th

I searched for the bug all morning but it’s nowhere to be found. I didn’t open the window or anything. I don’t hear it either, I’m really confused but I don’t know. I guess I’m glad it’s gone?

 

The count came and hit me. he hit me with his dumb stupid belt and it really hurt. I tried to hit him back but I couldn’t and he hit me more whenever I tried to insult him. He is way worse than all the bullies I ever met combined!! I’m crying right now and I hate everything. I want to tear up another book but I’m really scared he will hit me again. I’m hiding under my bed and I won’t come out until a Mother comes to get me and take me back home! I’d rather spend all day working on the fields than stay here a second longer! I’m not going to move an inch!

 

 

June 14th

I did move to get my blanket and I’m contemplating moving again to get the food but I think if I didn’t eat the food that would send a clear message to the count: I don’t want your filthy food!!

 

I ate half the food. The message is clear: I don’t want your filthy food but I’m really hungry!!

 

The count came in today and he just leaned against a wall and talked to me. there was a bodyguard with him, it was the same guy who held me down last time, I think. He held me down while the count hit me, I hate him.

Anyway, the count told me to call him master and he said that this wasn’t how I would normally be treated. He said that this was just so that I would know my place and not be a spoiled child who wasn’t even grateful for free food and shelter.

I didn’t say anything to him because I was scared but I really wish I could have made him get my Moms so that I could talk to them and convince them to take me back. If they knew they would take me back!

The count spoke a bunch of nonsense and took some of my notes. I’m not sure what he’s going to do to me tomorrow because I did make some jokes about him.

 

He came back and the bodyguard pulled me out from under my bed and slapped me a lot. The count just paced around the room angrily and told me all this super mean stuff about how I was worthless and

And how I was lucky to be alive and how much he could hurt me if he wanted to and how I was spoiled and rotten and how I should treat him in the future. APPARENTLY, I’m supposed to be GLAD to be placed in an empty room with little food and NOT ANGRY! I’m supposed to write praise about my ‘master’ and nothing else!! It’s nonsense and I hate his guts! I’m going to tear this up now because it’s already wet and disgusting and I have no handkerchief to wipe away all of these stupid ugly tears!

 

 

June 20th

I was finally allowed to go outside today! I really wanted to talk to all the people but I’m feeling so shy. I’m almost afraid of them which is strange because I would always be the one to introduce themselves first whenever somebody new came to our orphanage. Well, I’m the new one now and I’m really insecure about everything. The people all look really busy and it feels like everyone here things I’m not worth their time.

I’m only worth my Master’s time. He likes me. he told me I shouldn’t talk to the other people here and that they wouldn’t want to be caught speaking to a retarded jester. It really hurt and I don’t understand why its fine for me to entertain my Master but not the servant’s. It’s really confusing but I’m not going to ask.

I wish somebody, anybody would come talk to me. I’m really lonely and Master doesn’t care about me at all! He only wants me to entertain him for half an hour and then he just ignores me until I screw something up and then he beats me! I don’t want to screw things up but I want him to talk to me so badly. I don’t know what to do. I keep crying and I really want my Moms. I wish I was home. I wish I was dead. I’m so ashamed.

 

 

June 22th

I MADE A FRIEND! OH, THANK THE GODS I MADE A FRIEND! I was crying somewhere, I don’t remember where, and the old cleaning lady took pity on me! I’m so glad, I was really about to do something naughty just to get somebodies attention.

We gossiped about master and she listened while I told her all the things that have happened to me! she was really patient with me and she even sided with me! I’m so lucky.

She told me she would get into trouble for talking to me, which is very curious.

 

 

June 23th

I have confronted Master about me talking to other people. I told him everyone in the castle avoided me and one person, whose name I did not mention, told me that they were told not to talk to me before they continued ignoring me.

Master confessed that he wanted to be my only friend.

Aww.

 

 

February 22th (Age 12)

It’s my birthday today but master forgot. Master forgot and my other friends aren’t allowed to speak to me while anyone else is around so I was feeling just really sad. I have never had a birthday like this, people would always hug me awake or smile or just say something… I just wanted a smile.

Master noticed and told me to cheer up. He didn’t ask me what was wrong or anything he just told me to cheer up.

It kind of hurt but I sucked it up and did my best anyway. I know that he didn’t mean it. I know that he cares about me. It’s rare that a royal befriends a fool like me, someone so insignificant. I should really be more grateful for his subtle generosity.

 

 

May 3rd

Master has been getting more and more cruel. I’m failing to keep his attention and whenever that happens, he ‘entertains himself’ by humiliating me in some way. Sometimes he makes me strip, it’s really awful. Today he threw tomatoes at me, who does that?? Those tomatoes could be eaten or they could be given to animas which is a fun activity, throwing them is not! It’s wasteful and it really hurts because Master’s arms are really powerful.

I think Master is starting to get to me. I have lost so much confidence since I got here, I really feel worthless. Whenever Master shows up, I just put on an act because I’m afraid that if I don’t do that, he will humiliate me again. I think he really hates me but he doesn’t allow me to talk to anyone whenever he’s around which is during most of the day. I don’t understand what he wants from me, I’m just a freaking child!

 

 

July 6th

Some circus people came over today! I’m so glad that I can take a break from entertaining!! I was planning on hiding under my bed all day until nightfall but the circus people approached me and tried to teach me a few new tricks!

If I learned all they have to offer, I could entertain my Master again! I’m going to stay up all night and practice so that I can learn more tomorrow!

 

 

July 13th

I finally understand it! The reason master has been so cruel is because he wanted to encourage me to succeed! I have asked him to invite more colourful people like the circus folk to the castle, so that I could learn. He told me that he really loves entertainment and that he would spend any amount of money on it. He said he would definitely think about it.

I’m entertainment! Oh, I’m so glad that I somehow contributed to his love for fun! I’m going to work harder to make him happy!

 

 

July 30th

I worked too hard. I got punched in the face while doing some slapstick humour and it really… messed me up. I apparently have a fever too, the doctor said I should take a break and get more sleep.

I’ll sleep instead of writing, I guess.

 

 

August 2nd

I was too tired from illness to entertain so Master beat me.

It hurts so much that he would do this to me. Whenever I get mad at him, he locks me up in my room as well, I don’t get it! Now I’m sick and alone and I hate you Master!

Excuse me while I burn this page because YOU CAN’T HANDLE CRITISIZM!

 

 

August 4th

I feel a bit better now. It’s lonely but the doctor comes and checks up on me every once in a while, so I’m fine. Master came to see me once too. I didn’t speak to him. He couldn’t hit me in front of the doctor, idiot.

 

 

August 5th

The doctor said I’m fine but I’m still not let out. I guess I will read all of the books or something.

 

 

August 6th

These books are REALLY messed up! They are all weird love stories or something, I’m not sure. I still don’t understand a bunch of the words but it seems like death and torture of peasants are common themes.

In the one I just finished a prince fell in love with a selfish poor girl and she made him give up the crown and live with her. They seemed genuinely happy to live together and work all day but then they were both brutally murdered by the royals and everyone acted like it was a happy ending??

I’m really scared. Master doesn’t think of me as poor, right? I know it’s my job to entertain him and I have failed at that recently but he’s not angry, right?

 

 

May 17th (Age 13)

I got ill again. I was trying to learn a bit of snake charming and Master was really excited about it but then I got bitten. It wasn’t even a deadly snake but Master was so disappointed…

 

 

January 16th (Age 14)

The cute circus person was trying to teach me to juggle knives, I was doing really great until I performed in front of Master. I got… adventurous. I really wanted to impress my Master and I got hurt again. I’m a terrible person.

 

 

March 3rd (Age 15)

My Master very recently learned to throw knives! I’m really excited about it, maybe we could throw knives together like a team! Eradicate fruit and stuff! I haven’t done anything together wit my master ever, I’m so lucky that this is happening!

Maybe I inspired him to pick up a hobby like this! After all, if a young boy can do it then of course my Master can do it too! He’s really great at it! Well, he is of a fine bloodline after all. He was basically born perfect unlike me; talent flows in his veins!

 

 

March 4th

I didn’t expect him to tie me up like that. I was shaking. I was shaking a lot. No wonder he missed.

 

 

April 6th (Age 19)

Master has gathered me and a few very manly looking people in his chambers today. He introduced me to them and it turns out they were famous bullfighters! I was stunned, I had never expected my Master to invite famous people over just so that they could teach me!!

I was told that they would also have a bullfighting even at the end of the week but teaching me was their primary motivation!

 

I was a bit worried at first, bulls are very deadly but when I talked to Master about it, he mentioned how he heard so much about the sport and how happy he was to finally witness it with his own eyes. He seemed to absorbed in the idea and he was so passionate about it!

If it made him happy, I would get hurt for my Master! I would!! I’m not afraid anymore. I know I’m in good hands and I know that there’s no way my Master is going to look down on an epic muscular bullfighter! If I got really good at this, maybe Master would respect me more! He seemed to really like the two manly men; I hope I can be just like them!

 

 

April 16th

Master got me a bull! My own animal to play with and slay! And I know that I always screw up things like this and make my Master all upset and just act like the incompetent fool that I am but I actually did it this time!! It went flawlessly, a few royals even commented that the other two guys didn’t use so many strange and creative techniques to kill the animal!

I mean, I was very cruel to it but I did it because I wanted to make Master happy, so it’s fine. It’s worth it for Master. He liked it so much that he wants me to do something like that every month! I’m so glad he enjoyed it so much!

He even bragged about having a jester like me to the other royals, they were so jealous! Jealous of an ugly deformed servant like me! It’s clear to me that Master has transformed me into something more! I am greater than I was before all due to his guidance. I think it was all worth it, it’s hard to not let all the praise get to my head!

I’m feeling just really great today!

The next bullfight is gong to be on May 16th, I can’t wait!

 

 

May 17th

I can’t stop shaking. I can’t recognize my own handwriting, it’s so terrible. I’m such a failure.

Just one month and I was already out of practice. Master said that bullfighting was like riding a bike, you weren’t supposed to forget it. That’s why he spent all that money to hire me famous and brilliant teachers. All that money down the drain.

I have grown numb to the pain. At first all I did was scream but now I just groan and shake all day. The doctor doesn’t tell me anything, he just whispers stuff at my Master. I don’t like it. Maids come and go; they bring me food sometimes but I can’t bring myself to eat. Maybe it’s the wound, maybe it’s the guilt. I feel awful. I feel absolutely awful.

But when nobody is in the room, like this… it’s the worst. It feels like I’m going to die and nobody is going to be there! Like… like… like an animal dying alone in the wilderness, cold and afraid. It’s the most horrible feeling! I just want somebody to be here. Somebody. Anybody!

 

But… but that’s selfish.

That’s so selfish of me. I’m so selfish. Who cares if I die? I deserved it for being such a royal failure. I deserve all of this, it’s all my fault.

If you are reading this Master: I’m really sorry. It’s all my fault and the second I get better I will do everything I my power to please you again. I swear I will. So, please stay by my side. I’m so cold and lonely. Please just a few minutes. Please.

 

 Please.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, some of the weirder readers might be wondering: this William’s room have a toilet? No and I didn’t want to write about an 11-year-old boy peeing in a bucket so let’s all simultaneously ignore that part, ok?
> 
> While writing about the bugs in Williams room I saw something move behind my laptop and I jumped away and almost died. It was nothing. I am a crazy person.  
> I had fun XD


	18. Attempted Murder

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> No gay stuff yet.  
> That's all next chapter. Sorry.

January 16th (Age 20)

I must be crazy.

Ever since the bull accident I have been different. On the outside, I am the same but on the inside I have been a quivering pile of doubt; questioning absolutely everything about my life.

The wound still hurts after all this time, reminding me of what happened constantly. It wasn’t my Masters fault but I’m starting to think that maybe I have been… wrong… about Master.

He has demanded that I continue the monthly bull fighting, despite all of my begging. It’s really emotionally damaging to do the sport. It just… my wound aches, my heart makes me dizzy with how fast it’s beating and stabbing the bull… hurts.

Every time I hurt it, I remember of what it feels like to be hurt like that. I know the pain. Why in the world am I inflicting pain on some poor animal when I know exactly what it feels like to be an angry scarred animal that is being beaten to death?!

I’m the monster in the ring, not the bull. And I’m not the biggest monster. The biggest monster are all those smiling faces around me. I smile too. I’m so fake.

 

Every time the bull dies, part of me dies with it. The second I get away from their gaze I turn into an absolute mess.

I can’t do this anymore. I just can’t do this. But my Master won’t listen. He doesn’t care. He doesn’t care. He doesn’t care.

But no. I can’t convince myself of that by just repeating it over and over. But I can’t convince myself otherwise either.

I’m a mess.

 

Master noticed. Master doesn’t care.

The servants have noticed. The servants… care.

They have secretly been inviting me to their poker games. They even sneaked me out of the castle once for drinks. They told me that Master has been brainwashing me and they told me that they were seriously worried about me.

I don’t care about what they think about me. I was always broken. Master tried to fix me but couldn’t, there was nothing that could be done.

But.

But whenever I’m with them… it feels like the orphanage. It feels like… like I returned to my roots. It’s like family, like home. Like I was a happy child again, living for myself and not my Master. Whenever I hang out with them, I feel more and more distance get between me and Master. Has he always been so cold to me? Was it the isolation that made me like him so much?? Could it really be? Was that why he was locking me away whenever I got close to someone else? Was he really… brainwashing me?

 

 

 

There were no journal entries left. This was the last one. I stood there, alone, looking at all the papers before me. Alone in my room, in front of my desk… like always. However, today was clearly different. I had my entire life’s story in front of me today.

And it was confusing.

I had been remembering my child-self wrong. I hadn’t always been that damaged, after all. Back then I wasn’t an emotional wreck in need of guidance, I used to be just a normal kid with some extra enthusiasm in him.

I remembered the days before the monthly bullfight, I was contemplating… a lot of things. I didn’t want to live like that anymore.

But… If I left, he would replace me.

I wasn’t sure what to do at all… and then that day came along. The day he asked me to bullfight… a lion.

I stared in horror as the table before me turned into the lion’s cage. It was roaring, hissing, clawing at the metal bars with its enormous claws.

_Bulls could kill. Lions wanted to kill._

 

I shivered and a panicked discomfort made me feel sick. It was as if my entire body was fighting the  idea that I would be challenging this monster today.

Suicide.

Everyone knew it was suicide.

Master knew it was suicide. But he didn’t care. He didn’t care. He didn’t care at all.

I panted silently. It was fine, I had re-lived this memory many times before. I knew how it would go. I knew it would be hell but I had been through hell before. I took a deep breath and stepped away from the cage. To my right was my Master, he was surrounded by the most beautiful royals who were no doubt impressed by the animal. They understood it was tropical, they didn’t understand that it was way too deadly. Master was smiling and laughing, sitting on a cheap throne wearing purple robes. An expensive colour. He was showing off.

All of this was to show off.

I approached him and the people surrounding him got out of my way, not because they respected me but because I was the lowest of servants in their eyes.

 

I bowed once before stating the obvious. “Master, I can’t do this.”

_He frowned._ _“You aren’t sick or anything, right?”_

“Orion, you don’t understand. I don’t want to die!”

Was that what I said that day? What did I say? What could I say?? It was absolute insanity all around! Madness! Absolute madness! I couldn’t just accept this kind of treatment anymore.

_“Don’t you ever call me that.”_ He snarled before gesturing at the cage. _“Besides, I already bought the lion.”_

“I don’t want to die!”

_“You will for me.”_ he got up from his seat. _“Everyone is watching, Willie! I cannot disappoint them, I promised them a show! You never die anyway; I don’t know why you’re so worried. Just do it for me, that’s an order.”_

“Master… you don’t care about me at all, do you?”

 

What was my tone? Was I sad?  Angry? Desperate? I walked towards him, usually I wouldn’t get this close but everyone got distracted when the lion roared and I didn’t care about the rules anymore, the limits of how close I was supposed to get. He didn’t care either, he knew I was challenging him. He was prideful. He was strong. He was a lazy animal filled with cruelty.

He didn’t care that I was angry, he knew I wouldn’t do anything. He knew he had broken me down, weakened me and taken away everything that could possibly give me the strength to rebel. He knew it when he had done a good job. So, without even thinking about it he said the brutal truth.

 

_“Why in the world would I ever care about you?”_

 

The few people who were paying attention, laughed. Master laughed with them, taking a drink from a servant. He did always drink. He was never drunk enough for it to be an excuse.

It took way too long for his answer to settle in. he was holding up his drink, in victory of the obviously won argument. He was telling the guest’s that the show would start soon.

Oh, the show was starting. It started with me, cutting off my Master’s hand.

He dodged.

 

My mind went blank for a moment.

That was how it was supposed to go.

His panic was obvious but he didn’t seem drunk at all. His movements were much too fluid, much too thoughtful. I recovered quickly and swiped at him with my sickle once more. I missed him by an inch and to my surprise he caught my arm. He pulled my armed right arm away from my body, unusable, before grabbing my neck with his other hand.

I squirmed and clawed at my neck!

 

Was he expecting the attack? Why was this murder turning into an actual fight? This wasn’t at all how it was supposed to be! I was supposed to be a bloodthirsty maniac, slaughtering an unarmed man in a blind rage.

I was supposed to be making the biggest mistake of my life.

It was supposed to be dramatic and SHIT!!

 

I had a second blade, a dirk which I attempted to jab in his face-over my other arm. It connected! I saw it penetrate my Master’s stupid forehead, letting blood escape his empty scalp, doing…

0 damage.

 

I stared as his grimace spread all across his face.

No. what was happening? Why was this happening? I had thought long and hard about this and I had decided, I had decided to finally end this man. Yet, now everything was falling apart! Why was it like this? It hadn’t been like this last time!

Last time?

 

“William, what the hell got into you?!”

I shrieked at his words and panicked, trying very desperately to get my right arm back. I needed that arm. I couldn’t do any damage with the other for some reason! I noticed the reason. He was wearing armour. When had he changed into armour?? That mask… I knew that mask.

“Let go.” I squeaked.

“Will, calm down.” His voice was low and it sounded almost hollow. It had an unearthly nature to it that I had never noticed in Master’s voice before.

He sat down comfortably and pulled my arm, I staggered forward but I didn’t sit. He pulled again, opening his other arm welcomingly. I resisted. He sighed and tried to loosen my grip on the sickle. My mind was unfocused and tiny thoughts were telling me to stop, tint flickers of consciousness in my mind were doing their very best to change my mind.

What were they saying? Why was my own mind working against me??

This _wasn’t_ Master.

 

“Who are you??”

“It’s me Will! It’s me!” I just stared which made him sigh deeply. “Your gentle master, remember?”

My knees buckled up under me. “What… happened?”

“You were having a nightmare so I woke you up and then you tried to kill me.”

“Did I kill you?”

“Will, are you feeling alright?”

The liters of adrenaline exited my brain and I buried my fingers in the ground to keep from fainting. That dream… had really messed with my sense of reality. Everything was messing with my sense of reality.

 

I felt pressure on my shoulders, it was more than just gravity. The soft warm feeling of being pulled into an embrace… disgusting.

I clawed my way out of the hug, digging my fingers into his arms as best as I could, and regained my composure. Had I really been stupid enough to drop my weapons? I was completely unarmed! Why was I being so soft? So emotional? Why was I clinging onto this idea of being owned again so much??

Gentle Master…?? After I had worked so hard to get away from him, after all what happened… why did I return to my Master? Why did I feel safe in his arms? Why did I feel _safe_??

After I left my master behind… everything I once was changed. My entire purpose was to amuse one person, I felt so lost in this sea of people. I didn’t know what I was supposed to do or even… who I was.

Every friendship ended in disaster. They either abandoned me when I needed them the most, like all those shrieking idiots did after Master died, or they used me as a tool instead of treating me like a person. Whatever the situation, whoever the person, I never felt like they understood me.

I felt like I could never trust them.

And then, the one person I found that I could trust…

 

I knew why I felt safe. _I had completely lost my mind, that’s why._ It was impossible that my Master would come back from the dead and it was even more unbelievable that he would be different from before.

Master never changes.

What was all of this?? Where was I? why was the ground made out of bird wings?? I didn’t care. I wasn’t going to fall into this trap again. I wasn’t going back to the abuse.

I had fallen asleep. That had dire consequences.

I didn’t want punishment.

I wanted him dead once and for all.

 

A swift headbutt really fucking messed up my vision but it was just strong enough to confuse Master for a split second. I found my dirk; I had simply let it slip out of my hand before because I was an idiot. I aimed for the eyes but he coughed my hand, probably because the headbutt had hurt me more than him since he had his helmet and… why wasn’t I wearing my mask?! Heat dripped out of my forehead as I continued to snarl at him and push the knife towards his face.

I pushed myself towards him, placing our foreheads together in order to reach the sickle behind him. Our bodies were touching and what was almost a hug. I had gotten to close for him to defend himself. He thought I was useless. He thought I was weak but I wasn’t. I wouldn’t miss, despite my vision getting worse each passing moment. I dug the sickle into back. Right into the hole in his armour, I had discovered before.

He howled in pain as with one fluid motion I jammed it in and twisted it back out to remove as much meat and blood from his body as possible! The beautiful sound of screaming and blood splatter filled my ears and lulled me to sleep as he punched me into the ground.

 

“I trusted you, asshole!” he hissed.

“You really shouldn’t.” I winced as I tried to get back up. My body could handle it but my head couldn’t. I kept finding myself back on the ground with fuzzy colours and shapes clouding my vision. I tried to sit up, slowly. It worked.

Master had removed everything pointy from my surrounding and was currently trying to reach his back to gage how much damage I had done. I moved towards him and he pulled out an axe.

“William. Back off.” It was an order. Oh, how I hated those.

I was too unwell to do anything though. I doubted very much that I could hurt him with my bare hands.

 

The wound wouldn’t kill him. I wouldn’t kill him. But I wasn’t useless. I wasn’t useless. Right.

I wiped blood of eyebrows. My mask… where was my mask? I spotted the white surface of it on Dave’s belt, the belt which Master was disrespecting by wearing it on his hip. He was wearing everything that once belonged to Dave. It made my blood boil.

“I loved him; you know.” I hissed.

He just glared back at me.

“It pisses me off that you would wear his skin like that.”

I lunged at him and promptly faceplanted, approximately one inch away from him. My body reluctantly gave me back control and I once again tried to sit up. I couldn’t see, I couldn’t feel and everything felt like it was spinning. I held onto the bird wings covering the ground, as best as I could, before slapping myself in an attempt to stop the dizziness.

Maybe, if I hit myself enough, it would revert the damage! Of course, that was a stupid thought that came to the mind of a moron who was currently trying his very best to re-do the biggest mistake of his life. Clearly, there wasn’t a single ounce of logic left in my brain.

 

The slapping only made things way worse. I held onto the ground with both hands, trying to not fall off this roller coaster. I couldn’t fight ack when a hand pushed my head down. I rolled over and bit it, glaring at the general direction where the attackers face would be.

“Will that doesn’t even hurt…”

I couldn’t breath so I stopped biting for a moment. The hand moved up to my forehead and pressed it down. I kicked my legs in panic, though that did absolutely nothing to make things better and only made me more breathless. I gave in and stopped struggling to pant and gasp for air. I felt my eyes roll back though I wasn’t even sure if they were open or closed anymore and I felt my legs collapse back down. I didn’t want to move…  

The gloved hand felt nice on my skin. It was almost cold, though it was much more likely that the bleeding was making me feel burning hot. I took in a few deep breaths and closed my eyes shut in the slim hope that I could see his face when I opened them again.

I wanted to see his face.

I had to see his face.

I couldn’t. darkness was all I could see. I drifted off into nothingness a few moments later.  

 

 

_“Quivering on the battlefield, several feet below,_

_Underneath a thousand men lay someone that you know.”_

I came to when my ears picked up the sound of music. It sounded like a woman.

I did love music…

_“Your dearest friend, the best you had, from some time long ago._

_Left you shaken, wondering if you’ll ever ever meet again._

_Again._

_Drowning in the red water again_

_Again…”_

 

The ground under me was fluttering away. I wanted it gone. I couldn’t see it; I still couldn’t see anything but I still wanted all the visual clutter gone. One by one I heard them fly away. I felt their fluttering under me and I felt them caress my skin before taking off. Very soon, there were non left.

 

They left behind soft moss under my fingers and the smell of mud and poisonous spores. I felt the soft wind, softened by the many trees around me and heard the sound of insects and crows as they endlessly chased each other. It felt like I was close to some of body pf water.

 

The singing stopped. How long had she been singing? I tried to form a sentence but I was completely unsure about everything. The darkness around me wasn’t making it easy to tell if I was even awake.

“Arianna?” I finally said.

“Oh, thank the gods.” She sighed. It was her after all, a small smile graced my lips. “Please tell me that you’re no longer irrational!”

I tried to think, my head hurt terribly. “I think your song… helped.”

She laughed. “I should become a Jester.”

I rolled my eyes. “Don’t. You’re way stronger as a hellion.”

Giggles turned into silence. I really wished I could see her expression. I wanted to… I had just one question on my mind but I was worried that she wouldn’t answer it.

 

“Did I kill him?”

She was silent for what felt like an eternity. “No.”

I sighed in relief. “I’m glad… who was that??”

“About that, I was going to ask you the same Will. Who was that?” she sounded angry.

“I thought it was Master but… I don’t think I was very well at the time.”

She sighed. I felt a hand on my forehead and did my best not to jerk away. My head… felt… heavy… but I could also tell that it had been bandaged up.

“You aren’t exactly well right now either.” I tugged at the bandaged that were covering my eyes. “No, don’t do that. Olivia said it would calm you down.”

I stopped and let Arianna helped me sit up. “I tried to kill Dave, didn’t I?”

“Yes…”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yes, I know that he tried to kill his master with the dirk in the original. I know but I forgot so yeah... oops.  
> I'm not that proud with this chapter in general, to be perfectly honest.  
> Something about it just doesnt feel right.  
> Probably because there is no humor. Also, the song still doesn't work, I guess.

**Author's Note:**

> Hope you enjoyed my story so far :)  
> Maybe you didn’t notice that my name is Critique Masochist, it describes me very well! :D  
> I would love to hear any and all thoughts you have on my work in the form of a comment <3  
> If you don’t have an account, an easy way to comment is to just use gyblerish as a name and email account. For example:  
> Name: Commenter  
> Email: adfg@asdf.com


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